War of the Realms - Praying for Dex

Jack Roberts for Kennebec7

(War of the Realms)

Praying for Dex, Part III

I believe in miracles. I believe in magic. I really do. They just never happen in a very predictable manner. Almost two years ago, so many amazing things happened to me in the space of two weeks that you couldn’t call them anything else but miracles. Miracles aided by magic.

    Perhaps you remember when I first blogged here for Kennebec7 a month or so ago, I mentioned my death, how when Sadinsky shot me inside that biosphere, I simply fell apart. What I mean is, I literally dematerialized. Thousands, maybe millions, of infinitesimal pieces of Jack Roberts flying around. One of the first things I did, or my soul directed my essence to do, how ever you want to try to put words to a miracle, was to hurry back to my badly injured comrades, Dexter Thornton and Aranya Chen.

    I had left them behind when I set out from the forest where I had made a forced landing of the helicopter we took from Yat’s men. Dex and Aranya were too badly wounded to move. That whirlybird definitely needed a miracle. Yat and Sadinsky had kidnapped Terry, and I was out to get them. To get my son back and to finish off those two demons who had destroyed so many lives.

    The incomprehensible thing about miracles and magic is that sometimes they happen when you least expect them, and then they stop. The nonphysical forces in the cosmos, call them gods, angels, dark entities, Great Spirit, whatever you want, produce their phenomena according to a schedule best known to them. Then they seem to forget about you. One minute, you’re Spiderman, the next you’re Peter Parker, and you stay Peter Parker.

    Dexter, I’m thinking about you, bud. Imagining you in that hospital bed in Georgetown. Sending you my vibes. Imagining you getting up from that bed and walking away, putting both of your big strong arms around darlin’ Carla. I’m here in Myanmar, bro, my knees wet from the moist ground where I am praying, looking up into the stars, hoping, believing, that the angels are listening. Jannelle, honey, you’re up there, my angel. Take care of Dex, would you, sweetheart?

          I had spent a whole day in a secluded jungle valley tending to Dex and Aranya’s wounds.

          Night was falling again. I hated losing another day before reaching the fortress that I believed was now about twenty miles away. That’s where I believed they were holding Terry. I had lost the element of surprise, that is, if we ever really possessed it. The Dark Seekers had caught us unawares last night while Dex and Aranya and I sat around the campfire. I felt fortunate that somehow Sadinsky hadn’t attacked us again today while I was busy mending Dex and Aranya, the critically injured enemy pilot, and lastly myself. I could hardly put any weight on my foot anymore.

          Finally I had to laugh. What a ridiculous soldier I had become. Here I was in the middle of the Burmese wilds with a shot-up helicopter, almost no food and water, three limping and battered fighters, plus a one-armed enemy Chinese pilot, for whom I was actually starting to feel sorry!

          But it’s the way our private war against Sadinsky and Yat had been going the past year or so. Totally by guts and instinct.

          Her crutch under her right arm and her machine gun strapped over her left shoulder, Aranya limped over to my side. Achingly she lowered herself to the ground next to me, dropping the crutch and bringing her canteen up to my lips. Wordlessly I put my arm around her waist, and with my other hand I held her wrist as she guided the water down my throat.

          Thanks, I told her with a tired smile after I had sipped as much as I dared, given the shortages we were facing.

          Thanks, she deadpanned as she planted a hard hot kiss on my lips. Silently we looked into one another’s eyes long after the kiss was finished. Weary smiles tugged at both our mouths. From time to time, throughout the battles and danger we had faced during our Dark Seeker chase, Aranya and I remembered that, somehow, when we weren’t looking, maybe we had started falling in love. Something like that.

          She knew she would never replace Jannelle in my heart. She wasn’t sure she would want to, even if she could. I had only truly realized what a unique woman I had married after she had been taken from me. The same man who had stolen and drugged Aranya, and removed her from her life for almost a year removed Jannelle from life itself. Aranya and I had something in common—a consuming desire to remove Sadinsky from earthly existence.

          She showed me a packet of painkiller she had just found in the helicopter.
How about I give some to Jinghong? Jinghong was the helicopter pilot who

when the day had started thought he might bring my dead body back to the fortress. That was before my AMAK had taken off most of his arm.

          Good idea. First, let’s see if we can get him to take a little food.

          The only food, water and medical equipment we had left was that which we found on the helicopter we had commandeered from the Dark Seekers. With this, I had managed to partially clean and set Dex’s right shoulder, which had been shattered by Wa bullets. Aranya had sprained her back and apparently had suffered a badly bruised kidney along with an injured hip. Although both Dex and Aranya were quick healers, it would be many weeks before they would be ready for battle. Dex at this moment was asleep – aided by painkillers.

          The bones in my foot luckily had only been cracked, not broken, by the bullet that had hit me. I was less fortunate with the stab wound in my chest and shoulder, but still lucky enough. I was experiencing a lot of pain, but apparently no vital organs had been penetrated.

          As I helped Aranya redress Jinghong’s bloody stump, I suddenly found myself growing woozy. Part of it was the pain from my own wounds. But another part of me simply was reacting to the futility of a life filled with battles and blood. Here I was trying to give comfort to a man who only hours ago, I had deprived of half an arm.

          When we finished putting a clean bandage around his stump, Aranya began to prepare the needle for injection of the painkiller. Hold him up so I can get at the other arm, Aranya told me.

          The unconscious pilot stirred while I gripped him around the waist. Foggily Jinghong’s eyes opened. He saw the stump of his arm in his lap. His whole face creased with suffering. Holding him from behind, I tried to make him comfortable in my arms.

          Take it easy, buddy, I told him, Hang in there. You’re gonna be okay.

          As I watched Jinghong slip in and out of conscious, while Aranya prepared to send the painkiller into his vein, I noticed he was a handsome young man, that he now seemed so harmless, almost like a child.

          Suddenly, cold fear was streaking through my own body, I saw something incredible! When Aranya’s needle entered the vein in the crook of Jinghong’s remaining good arm, and I was holding him against my chest, my arms wrapped around him, I witnessed a different reality than I had ever dreamed existed.

          First I saw Jinghong’s auric energy slowly emanating from his body. Closest to the wounded man’s figure – shining like a neon light – he glowed a pale yellow color. An inch or so off his body, that color blended into a yellowish green.

          But even more was unfolding before my eyes. I had seen auras for the first time last night when I was fighting the Wa warriors in the dark. They had glowed an orange-red. In fact, their auras had made them easier to kill.

          Now something else was happening. I even blinked my eyes once or twice to try to change the picture. To return to my ‘normal’ sight. But my normal sight had changed.

          Right before my eyes he witnessed Jinghong metamorphosing! Changing! His wounded body was right there where it was supposed to be. But something else was happening. It looked something like a double exposure overlaying the normal Jinghong.

          His etheric body was changing. Jinghong was becoming a younger version of himself. Younger and younger. My mouth dropped. I was stunned. I even watched the guy in my arms become a newborn infant!

          The changes occurred so quickly. Like time lapse photography or morphing on a computer, the baby Jinghong’s face gradually became all crinkly as he turned into an ancient woman with long, wild hair and the fierce eyes of an eagle. I don’t know; maybe she was Native American.

          Her stare riveted me. I felt like hunks of lead had been jammed into my chest. Did I know her? Had we been enemies in a prior lifetime? Why did she wear that lingering look of hatred? Somewhere, sometime, we had known one another

          Aranya’s voice from the present brought me back. “Sleeping like a baby,” she commented as she withdrew the needle from Jinghong’s arm.

          Just before dawn broke over the Burmese jungle, Dex Thornton awoke from his much needed twenty-hour nap.

          Lying there, cozily encapsulated in a bedroll, Dex told me he felt like he had been buried under a ton of bricks. Every bone ached. His right shoulder felt like someone was prodding him over and over with a red-hot poker. When he wanted to shift his long, lanky body so he could look upon something other than the crows quarrelling overhead in the trees, every fiber and cell in his body protested.

          I’m getting too old for this stuff, Dex groaned. When he managed to tilt his head to the right he could see Aranya. Holding herself up with the help of crutch, she tended a coffee pot on a fire. Beyond Aranya, he saw me. I was giving Jinghong some water.

          Ron, Dex called hoarsely to Aranya, Get thou hither, girl!

          Dex! she looked up, an uncharacteristically joyous smile on her face. As fast as she could limp, she headed to his side. You old fossil! she cried, giving him a kiss, Are you finished goofing off?

          Shortly, I joined them. Aranya and I checked Dex’s shoulder dressing, cleaned the wound again, and as best we could manage, we reset his shattered shoulder. Elated that our grizzled friend seemed capable of taking the first steps on his road to recovery, we brought him coffee and some of the dry food we found in the helicopter.

          When Dex was able to walk a bit, we brought him to Jinghong. The Dark Seeker pilot, although seldom conscious for very long, seemed to have stabilized somewhat. When Jinghong did open his eyes, Dex was surprised to see in his face a look of peace and gratitude.

          Where do we go from here? Dex asked me when we were alone.

          I was trying to fit a clean shirt on Dex’s back. I had found a stack of dark green uniforms in the helicopter that were meant for Yat’s guardsmen. Dex grinned ironically as the enemy’s shirt slid over his good left arm. It was a bit short, but it felt a lot better than the sweat and blood soaked clothing he wore during the battle two days ago.

          You don’t go anywhere, Dex, I told him firmly. You and Ron stay here with Jinghong.

          While you do what, bro? asked Dex, Address the House of Representatives about balancing the budget?

          I’m going to drop in on Sadinsky.

          You and who’s army?

          I tugged on my five-day’s growth of whiskers. It was gray and brown. Mostly gray. But not as gray as Dex’s hair. You and me and Ron have made a pretty good army so far, amigo. But today I fly with the angels, that is if I can get this bird in the air. It took a lot of bullets yesterday.

          Dex looked at me long and hard. The ‘angels’, huh, he  slowly sat down on a large rock.

          I nodded. I’m gonna come back and get you characters. Count on it.

          Of course you are, partner, Dex said softly. We remained there in silence for several minutes. Then Dex said, They’ve probably got a thousand armed men there, people who hate your guts, Jack.

          You think as many as a thousand, eh?

          Well, I don’t know it for a fact, Dex answered, but, y’know, we’ve been taught to listen to our visions, Jack.

          And that’s what you see? I looked hard into the ground beneath his feet.

          Yeah, Dex said, looking away as he lightly massaged his shoulder. Not only that, Jack, but they know we’re out here. Look, they even sent this bird to pick up our bodies. He nodded toward the helicopter. I frowned and rubbed my chin.

          Then Dex made an observation he had hesitated earlier to make. Terry’s there, isn’t he? They got him, don’t they? Aranya’s dream was right.

          How do you know that? I asked him, my eyes probing Dex’s face deeply.

          Maybe it was the painkillers or something, Dex shrugged with his good shoulder, looking off into the jungle, but it felt very real. I kept having dreams – visions – whatever. I saw Terry in some fortress. Sadinsky was there. Some fat turkey I assume was Yat. It was nasty, Jack.

           I saw the same vision, Dex. I’m going in, pal. Now.

Jack Roberts

Somewhere in Myanmar

05/04/2010

Jack Roberts for Kennebec7(#3)

Jack Roberts for Kennebec7(#3)

War of the Realms

 

It was morning and steam was rising out of the jungle west of the Shan Plateau when I first got sight of the Dark Seekers' helicopter. It awaited the victorious Wa Warriors sent to capture me and my two sidekicks, Dex and Aranya.

The Chinese pilot, whose name I learned later, Captain Jinghong – one of Dr. Yat's finest – was more than a little shocked when he saw that of the twenty warriors he had flown in from the fortress the previous afternoon, only six able–bodied men remained . Another seven limped along with a variety of injuries. The remaining seven, Captain Jinghong guessed, would never return.

     The pilot 's eyes scanned the approaching throng tensely. He was

somewhat relieved to spot my friends, the two injured enemy fighters covered by Dark Seeker  weapons making their way toward the helicopter. He knew them only from pictures he had seen on Dr. Yat's computer.

     The tall, black man with the shoulder injury making his right arm hang uselessly by his side was my best friend, Dexter Thornton. Despite the great pain he was obviously suffering, Dex kept his head high as he marched forward assisting Aranya.

     Jinghong had looked forward to seeing the legendary Aranya. Yes, he had seen her picture in the fortress records. He had heard Sadinsky brag about keeping her a captive for almost a year. His 'slave' he had called this mighty she-warrior.

     Even wounded – apparently suffering a back injury from the way she walked – braced by Dex’s strong left arm, she was a magnificent specimen of Amazonian woman.

     Not as tall as the classical Amazon (in fact, Aranya was only five foot four inches), she was nonetheless statuesque. Jinghong must have felt his heart rise in his chest when he realized that Aranya’s eyes – only twenty feet away and coming closer – were finding him as they probed the helicopter. Her withering look forced the pilot to avert his gaze. That’s the way I envision the scene from our lengthy conversations later.

     In the rapidly diminishing seconds left in Jinghong’s normal life, the image of her powerful shoulders, her thin waist from which spread a dramatic V-shaped torso and marvelously sculpted arms and legs and hips were frozen in his mind.

     But where was I! I was the main prize they had been sent for. He questioned one of the Dark Seeker warriors in his native dialect.

     The warrior, glancing at Dex and Aranya half in hatred and half in fear, and then casting nervous looks at the seemingly empty jungle behind them, told Jinghong – in effect – Let’s get out of here. We’ve got these two. I don’t want to get killed. These three fight like demons.

     The warrior was about to push pass him and climb into the helicopter, but the pilot restrained him. Just a minute—do you realize what will happen to you back at the fortress if we don’t bring back Roberts? Those are real demons back there, you fool.

     Actually I was closer than they could imagine. Almost three hundred yards to the rear, hidden in the thick vegetation. I was exhausted I put down the AMAK single-shot, long-range rifle I had managed to unearth from its hiding-place outside the camp.

     Following the path of the retreating Wa's and my injured comrades, I had dragged the bulky weapon for several miles through the night and into the light of morning. Finally, I could assess our situation realistically and make a plan to rescue Dex and Aranya.

     I had nearly been killed. First I took a bullet in my foot that although my rugged boot had partially blunted it, the slug had caused enough trauma to my bone that I was forced to limp painfully with each step. Later in hand-to-hand combat with one of the Wa's, a dagger penetrated my shoulder. But I tossed the man over my shoulder where he landed against a tree with long, hard spikes. The man's screams in the dark almost made me forget the pain of the knife wound.

     In the dark during the battle I had been separated from Dex and Aranya. The Dark Seekers outnumbered us at least seven-to-one, but the three of us had faced harder odds before. Reacting quickly and decisively, we were able to put them on their back foot. The local warriors soon exhausted most of their early advantage. The Wa’s quickly lost their passion when we refused to quit.

     The fight became like an eerie fantasy after the campfire went out. In the pitch dark I felt almost as though I was going mad. For the first time in my life, I was vaguely able to distinguish enemy forms by the auras their bodies generated. It was like a light, red electrical fuzz that seemed to silhouette the Dark Seekers' movements in the night. At first I didn't trust my eyes or my senses to take advantage of my new powers of vision. I just kept darting and firing. Finally, there were no more shots being fired, Just groans of pain from the wounded. Orders being shouted in the local dialect by Wa's positioned in different locations in the jungle.

     I heard Dex call hoarsely from more than 30 yards away in the night. Jack– I'm hit. Ron's hurt. They've got--- Then he was silenced.

     I went about ripping off a shirtsleeve to make a tourniquet for my bleeding shoulder. I didn't even want to try to look at my foot in the dark. As long as I could limp along, I would attempt to keep up with the retreating Wa's. When it was light again, I would try to repair myself.

     At dawn as I watched the enemy milling about the helicopter, I saw they were still in disarray following their debacle in the dark. I looked down at my boot, caked with blood. Inside it, my foot throbbed horribly with a dull pain. It was like someone was beating on it with a hammer.

     But when I saw Dex and Aranya being shoved forward toward the craft I knew I’d have to face the foot injury after I tried to rescue my friends. That endeavor, I reckoned, would require precise timing, expert marksmanship and a steady hand.

 

     I had had an idea that the AMAK long-range sniper weapon might prove essential. That 's why I had lugged it for two miles while limping after the Wa's.

I couldn't let Dex and Aranya be flown off with the Dark Seekers in that helicopter. It could very well seal their fate. Yet I didn't want to destroy the helicopter. The craft could be our ticket to reaching Sadinsky and Yat. And finding my son.

     Fitting a 50 caliber shell into the rifle, I studied the target area. I had one shot. I had to make it count.

     Captain Jinghong slapped Dex in the face. The big guy tried to retaliate with his one good arm, but two Wa's restrained him. They knocked Dex down and started kicking him. The helicopter pilot, meanwhile, took Aranya's jaw in his hand and forced her face close to his.

                                                                                                                                                     

     Later Aranya recounted the confrontation. Captain Jinghong is a name to remember, Miss Chen, he leered. When you are in the hands of the Dark Seekers, you will wish you had a friend such as me.

     Basically Aranya has no fear. Although she appeared to have trouble standing without Dex's support, she still possessed a reserve of deadly force. Her leg shot upward, catching Jinghong in the crotch and lifting him off his feet! He howled in pain. Writhing on the ground he reached for his holster as two more Wa's held Aranya.

     Save your friendship, she spat, for yourself and your lowlife pals. This place will be your burial ground.

     Slowly Jinghong started to rise, his face lined with pain and anger, his eyes burning with hatred. The nose of his pistol dug into Aranya's cheek. Sadinsky said it didn't matter if you came back alive, he snarled.

     His finger had just started to pressure the trigger of his gun when there was a roar from the hillside overlooking them. I pulled the trigger first. Suddenly there was the sound of a projectile cutting through the air- invisible to the eye – and then Captain Jinghong found himself without a right arm with which to hold the gun in Aranya's face.

     The AMAK’s 50-caliber shell ripped his arm off. Jinghong shrieked in pain and horror. As the terrified Wa's stared in shock at the disabled Jinghong screaming and flopping on the ground, I unloaded on them with the machine gun sending them running for the jungle on the far side of the clearing.

     I limped and ran and stumbled down the hillside, now firing my pistol. The enemy around the helicopter began to melt into the trees. Captain Jinghong, meanwhile, lay unconscious on the ground.

     Immediately seizing the opportunity, Dex struggled to his feet, collecting an assault weapon discarded on the ground by a fleeing Wa. He fired a few bursts at their heels as the Wa's disappeared in the jungle.

     C'mon, Ron, we gotta move it, honey. Dex reached down to help Aranya off the ground. She was still stunned. The AMAK shell had taken off Jinghong's arm just a half-foot from her head

     When she had shaken her wits back in place, Aranya let out a stream of obscenities in French. That was her favorite language for swearing; she knew more good words. Dex helped her to her feet. When they saw me hobbling out of the jungle to the east, hurrying toward them, the warrior woman muttered to Dex, Jack Roberts. I don't know whether I'm going to hug him or strangle him. That shell was so close I could read its expiration date!

      With pain etched on his face, Dex marched her to the helicopter hatch. Lemme help you inside. We gotta get outa here. He had helped Aranya half way into the craft when I reached his side. Good shootin, bro, Dex told me. I was shaken when I saw the extent of their injuries.

     I looked at Jinghong bleeding all over the ground. Let's get this fella in the copter, too, I told Dex, after quickly examining pilot for signs of life. We can’t leave him like this. He was one of the bad guys, but I couldn’t leave him alone in the wilderness with one arm blown off. I guessed that there would be medical equipment inside the craft. Both Dex and I were pilots. If we could get away from this Dark Seeker nest, there was a better chance of focusing on everyone's wounds including the Chinese pilot's bloody stump.

     Before I could get the helicopter airborne, the remaining able-bodied mercenaries hiding in the nearby jungle started firing on us. My hands were on the controls when the helicopter began taking hits. The craft responded to my touch. But the hail of bullets was taking a toll. As we took off, smoke was beginning to pour out of the engine. This might be a very abbreviated flight, I realized grimly as I fought to keep the helicopter in the air.

Jack Roberts

Shan Plateau, Myanmar

(04/30/2010)

Artist: Rick Lucey 

To be continued

Jack Roberts for Kennebec7 (#2)

Artist: Rick Lucey

Jack Roberts for Kennebec7 (#2)

Praying for Dex

We’re in the middle of no where here in Myanmar. We ran into a band of traffickers earlier tonight in the jungle. They had about twenty-five kids –Burmese boys and girls-- age about 7 to 13. They were linked by chains, heading for the Thai or Chinese borders. Although there was only me and Len and Connie, plus our fearless Burmese partner, Zaw, we heard them first, the kids crying and the traffickers hollering threats there in the middle of the jungle.

          The traffickers numbered about twenty, but we had the advantage of knowing they were there before they knew what hit them. We have never slaughtered any enemy without giving fair warning, but sometimes threats do no good. The four of us got the drop on them. We had torches; we could see what they had. But they grabbed the kids and tried to use them as human shields.

          The traffickers obviously hadn’t had much experience fighting people who know how to use silent weapons- knives, martial arts, knowledge of weaknesses in the human flesh, and so forth. Without a great deal of actual gunfire, we disabled several of them. When they realized that this might be a kettle of fish which they weren’t familiar with, they ran, scattering into the night and the jungle.

          So, we got the kids out of their chains. Zaw spoke their language, so he got a pretty good idea where they belonged. As best we could, we tended to their injuries. We buried the two traffickers who had been killed in the fracas, bandaged two more who sustained injuries, and restrained them with the same chains they’d been using on the children. Connie suffered a shoulder injury, but it wasn’t too serious. Connie is a tough young woman. She stayed with me, while Zaw and Len took off with the kids towards a village where their people lived.

          We didn’t make a fire. The other traffickers could easily double back on us. We put mosquito netting around ourselves and the two prisoners. We shared some water with them, but not our dry rations. We didn’t have that much left after a five weeks in the wilderness. We sat listening to the night. We had some pretty efficient weapons nearby. There would be no sleep tonight. Len and Zaw would hopefully be back by the next midday.

          Connie spoke softly. You got a message about Dex, didn’t you?

          His wife texted me. Carla.

          How’s Dex making out?

          It’s not looking so good. He’s back in the hospital. But Carla says he wants me to know it’s not over until it’s over.

          He’s so amazing, Connie said. I wouldn’t bet against Dex.

          Suddenly I was reminded that it was a night so much like this one when Dex and I and Aranya were sitting around a campfire in the Burmese wilderness. That’s when the firefight erupted and Dex sustained some of the injuries that ultimately led to the condition he finds himself in today.

          Dex and I have been best friends since we were young lieutenants in the Army back at the beginning of Desert Storm. Ten years later when my wife was murdered by Sadinsky in Africa, I retired from the military and became a freelance warrior. Now I had my own war to fight. Dex then opted out of the Army, too. My mission became his. I would have done the same if anybody did to Carla what those bloody bastards did to Jannelle.

          I was back in Michigan taking care of Terry, tracking Sadinsky via satellite and my computer, when Dex, an agricultural warfare specialist, informed me about a high-jacking of invaluable pods from rare tropical plants in Brazil. The high-jacked plane was traced to the remote jungles of northern Myanmar where it disappeared from all surveillance systems.

          Within days my small team, consisting of Dex and myself, plus a remarkable Chinese-Venezuelan fighter named Aranya, found ourselves on the Shan Plateau, just like we are tonight. That night we were tracking down Sadinsky who had had Terry kidnapped. Tonight has been a different mission, which must remain confidential.

          But back when Dexter was with us, we also had more than twenty locals who were supposedly guiding us to Sadinsky’s hideout. The closer we got, the more nervous our ‘guides’ became.

          Dex stood up and walked over the Arvid, the leader of the Burmese guides. Arvid’s other two lieutenants had melted momentarily into the darkness. Arvid, he asked, puffing on his pipe, “how many more miles you figure to the fortress?”

          The small, sinewy, gray-faced man stared at Dex for a few seconds. When he spoke, his English was surprisingly clear, but his manner betrayed his annoyance.  Colonel Roberts ask me that question already. The woman asked me too. I told them-- maybe forty miles.

          Dex nodded, Okay. Then he had a funny feeling. Where’re the boys? he asked referring to the other guides.

          Again Arvid stared extra long at Dex, as if measuring him. Getting some more firewood.

          Dex casually strolled back to the fire where Aranya and I were checking our weapons. In addition to her Beretta automatic pistol, she carried an Uzi. I had a revolver hanging under my armpit and an automatic rifle I slung over my shoulder when I was hiking through the jungle. Maybe we’d better sleep with our toys tonight, Dex joked grimly.

          What’s up, Dex? I whispered, immediately alerted to the possibilities of trouble by my friend’s tone.

          I’m not sure, yet, Dex commented, relighting his pipe. He turned to Aranya, Ron, whatta you think? Maybe Sadinsky ain’t gonna wait for us to show up at his door?

          I told the two of you, I don’t trust these guys. She had been suspicious of the guides since the beginning. After what she had experienced with Sadinsky, Aranya basically didn’t trust anybody. Except, maybe Dex and me.

          I was turning the situation over in my mind when Arvid suddenly appeared at my side. He pulled a gun and stuck it in my ribs. He sneered, Colonel Roberts, I have sore feet. I don’t feel like guiding you anymore, so I have arranged other transportation to the fortress.

          His eyes gleamed with a supernatural hatred. I had seen that look before. Dark Seekers, I thought instantaneously. The Dark Seekers were a cult of hypernatural hit men.

          Before Aranya or Dex or I had a chance to react, about twenty local warriors, armed with automatic weapons stepped out of the dark into the circle of light from the campfire. Suddenly, Aranya lashed out with her nun-chucks which had been hanging around her neck, almost faster than the eye could follow. They wrapped around Arvid’s gun arm, spinning him around.

          The guide’s finger reflexively pressed the trigger of his weapon, sending a hail of bullets into the midsections of several of the approaching warriors. Then Aranya’s fist connected with Arvid’s chin, pitching him into the fire.

          Oh well, she quipped, one less for breakfast.

          Dex tackled a warrior aiming his automatic at Aranya. His bullet plowed into the night sky. I grabbed her and dove for cover just before the other seventeen Dark Seeker hirelings opened fire.

          Aranya came up firing back. She managed to toss Dex an automatic. Between them, they scattered a half dozen warriors who were almost on top of us.

          Hugging the ground.  I circled around to the other side of the camp.  When I came upon two unsuspecting warriors, I utilized my own martial arts skills to flatten them.  No shots from my handgun were required.

          The firefight lasted less than a half hour. I was operating from one side of the battle. Shots were whipping through the leaves, thudding into trees. Suddenly there was silence. As I maneuvered carefully back toward the campsite, I heard hurried footsteps disappearing in the jungle. I saw bodies. Plenty of them. They were all locals. I called for Dex and Aranya. No answer. Then I realized that blood was filling my boot. My right foot had taken a round. So had my shoulder. It wasn’t until the adrenalin wore down that I fully realized I was in deep pain.

To Be Continued

Jack Roberts

Myanmar

(04/27/2010)