Countdown: H Hour by Tom Kratman Read Free Book Online Page B

as two hundred of the bastards at one time. And it is a major base; regular huts for barracks, rifle ranges, big kitchens and mess halls, a more or less regular hospital, though I didn’t note any doctors. I saw that much, at least. And they’ve got some heavy weapons, too. Mortars certainly. And I thought I saw a recoilless rifle on someone’s shoulder the last time they walked me like a dog for exercise, two days ago.
    So what’s that mean? At least a big company, the way we’d think of it, or maybe a small battalion in Moro terms. I’d guess a small battalion. And that’s just what I’ve seen. Could be five times as many within a half a mile. Shit.
    The old man sighed. Ah, Paloma, pearl of my heart. I wish you hadn’t been such a stickler for appearances. I’d much rather have been in bed with you, comfortably, than with any number of young bimbos. And I’d sure as hell rather be in bed with you now than here, with this band of pirates.
    Smiling, Ayala thought, Ah, my very dearest, what pirates we were, together, in our youth.

    Zamboanga International Airport, Mindanao,
    Republic of the Philippines

    It was one of the world’s amusing little incongruities that, no matter how much technological sophistication had grown in matters of communication, the most secure form of communication remained what it had been in Caesar’s day and before, the human messenger. For what Janail needed, no mere message carrier would do; he had to go himself and he had to fly out of this nothing much airport.
    The “International” part was usually more wish than reality. Oh, there’d been any number of international flights over the years—not even including American and Japanese fighters and bombers, circa 1942 to 1945—but the service never seemed to last. Zest Airways or South East Asian Airlines or Nocturnal Aviators would give it a whirl, then eliminate the service after a few months or years. It was simply a loser, and no one really seemed to know why. This, perhaps, helped explain why different air lines kept trying.
    The sucker airline du jour was Royal Brunei, the sultan’s finances being in a parlous state, what with the Allah-help-us, rock bottom price of oil in a world rapidly sliding into the poor house.
    Not that the sultan was willing to bet a great deal of increasingly scarce money on the venture. No, no; not when he’d already had to add fifty percent to the number of Gurkhas he kept on hand, the Gurkhas being affordable where keeping up the oil welfare state was becoming increasingly unaffordable.
    No, there was no money to spend on new aircraft for a new service. The sultan—or, rather, a cousin running the airline on the sultan’s behalf—had brought a couple of Fokker 50’s out of retirement and put them to work.
    Which works out conveniently for me , thought Janail, trudging up the ladder to the Fokker’s cabin, because I really didn’t want to go through Manila, even if I’m reasonably sure the authorities don’t have a decent picture of me.
    ’Course, I’d have preferred the complete anonymity of travel by sea. Sadly, too many pirates who answer to nobody. Too many pirates, too many hungry pirates, given how little trade there is lately. Especially down by Sulu.

    Kudat, Sabah, East Malaysia, Island of Borneo

    Flight, airport, and civilization were all well behind Janail now. With the lights of Kudat glowing dimly to the west, aboard a narrow skiff, putt-putting between the overgrown green banks of the inlet jutting south from the Sulu Sea, Janail slapped absently at a buzzing mosquito. Maddeningly, the damned thing refused to stay in one place long enough to be killed, moving from ear to neck to face and back to ear, without ever once settling down for a meal.
    “Fickle bastard,” the kidnapper muttered. Note to self: When I’m sultan, mosquito eradication program. High priority.
    Seated beside Janail, his companion, the Pakistani Mahmood Abdul Majeed, gave a victory grunt. He’d