"You have a suggestion, Ly?"

"Yes, I do."

"Let's have it."

"What I propose is that we offer the Chinese a deal. As soon as the white men return we arrest them. Then we send a messenger to the Chinese. We offer the white men in return for peace."

Nark glanced at Bolan, alarm in his face. Bolan calmed him with a hand on his arm. Let them get their rancor out.

"And if the white men don't return?" someone asked. "Tiger is looking for them. They have patrols everywhere."

"They might be dead already," another suggested.

"They'll come, don't worry," said the man called Ly. "The one in the black scarf won't let Tiger get him, you can be sure of that. I was here two days ago when he polished off that squad out on the grazing fields."

"Yes, a real fighter," said Vang Ky.

"And lucky," Ly continued. "A man under the protection of spirits. He'll be back, you'll see."

"But we can't hand them over to Tiger," said Vang Ky.

"Why not?"

"We can't. That would be betrayal."

"Betrayal? And what is it they did to us in Vietnam? Was that not betrayal?"

Grunts of approval rose from the crowd. Ly's argument hit a nerve.

"Yes, it was betrayal!" A white man's voice spoke up from the back, loud and clear.

Faces turned and a buzz ran through the hut. An aisle opened and Bolan advanced to the circle of the stools. An empty one materialized from nowhere, and he joined the dozen headmen.

"Yes, it was betrayal," he repeated. "Politics is a dirty business." His eyes swept the assembled company. "As we all know."

At that the tension building up in the room diffused. Bolan could see his message had struck home. True, they had got a rough deal in Vietnam, but politics had its own rules, and none knew this better than the Meo. During their four-thousand-year history they had sold more allies down the river than anyone cared to remember. In politics, no nation is lily-white.

Taking advantage of the new mood, Bolan announced, "The arms and the money will be dropped after midnight tonight in the Valley of the Spirits. The drop has been confirmed." He turned to Vang Ky. "How near are the Chinese?"

"The Chinese will be here in four hours," the headman replied. "They are traveling on the Nam Tha trail. I have horsemen tracking them. We have reports every hour."

"Our homes will have gone up in flames before we see those arms," someone said.

"That is if we ever see them," threw in Pao skeptically.

Bolan looked straight at Pao. "Do I leave the room or do I continue?" he asked.

"Continue, continue," the others urged.

Once more Bolan turned to Vang Ky. "What is the strength of the Chinese column?"

"Two hundred rifles."

"How are they coming, on foot?"

"Yes, on foot."

"Any other armament?"

"Grenades and flamethrowers."

"What about us, what do we have in the way of armament?"

"Crossbows, muskets, and thirteen rifles."

"Thirteen?" Bolan exclaimed. "We captured over forty in the raid on the pagoda!"

Vang Ky sucked on his teeth and looked down at the space between his feet. Seconds ticked by.

"He sold them," volunteered one of the other headmen.

"You what?" Bolan exploded.

"On our way back," Vang Ky began, looking at everything and nothing in particular but making sure he avoided Bolan's stare, "on our way back we met the Yao. They were paying good money." Vang Ky's eyes traveled from the fire to the jars of upas tree poison, to the spot between his feet, and back to the fire. "Since we were going to receive a lot of weapons tonight anyway..."

"Ky thought it was his opportunity to make a killing," another man finished.

A long silence followed. It was broken by the man called Ly. "There you have it, Mr. White Man," he said. "We have thirteen rifles, and they have two hundred. We cannot save our homes by fighting. Our only chance is to negotiate." He added knowingly, "And as you said, politics is a dirty business."

Bolan got his drift, all right. He and Nark were to be the sacrificial lambs with which the Meo would appease Tiger. And judging from the reaction — or lack of reaction — the conference found Ly's proposition a good one. Only Vang Ky had spoken against it.

"What makes you so certain the Chinese will go for your proposal?" Bolan asked Ly. "If I know them, they'll take us and attack the villages anyway."

It was hardly an argument, but that was not the point. The point was to stretch the conversation to give himself time to come up with a solution. He had to find a way of destroying that column. It was the only way of keeping Galloping Horse alive. They could not scrub the mission, not now, not after the work that had gone into it, the effort of hundreds of good people who had been working on it for months, the ships, the planes that were waiting for the signal to swing into action.

He could not let them down.

"The Chinese are shrewd people," the headman Ly said. "They know if they burn the villages, there will be no one to harvest the opium."

To which Bolan replied, "Tiger can afford to lose a few kilos of opium. They'll make it up from their stockpile. But what they cannot afford is to let a rebellion go unpunished."

"There are many ways the strong can punish the weak," Ly said. "A fine, for example. A fine would be much more lucrative."

"I disagree," Bolan replied. "A fine is not a strong enough punishment. The punishment must be strong enough to deter the other Montagnard nations from following your example. The Chinese..."

Eureka! He found it! The solution was staring him in the face, stacked against the opposite wall, jars and jars of it. The upas tree poison!

He would destroy the Tiger column with poison.

Bolan turned to Vang Ky. "Can I borrow your elephant?"

Atop the elephant, Bolan waited for the coming of Tiger. It was night and the moon was shining. The elephant stood hidden by trees a couple of hundred yards from the Nam Tha trail. Everything was ready for the ambush, the entire village having lent a hand. Six thousand bamboo poles had been cut, women had sharpened them into spikes, children had dipped them in upas tree poison, and the men had planted them in the kill zone. Now, the rest was up to Bolan.

He sat in a howdah, an Armalite in his lap, an ammunition belt around his waist. From under the belt protruded a poppy red sash. A black Montagnard pajama suit replaced his tattered fighter suit. To make him look like a real Meo, the headman had given him a broad Montagnard silver collar, which Bolan also wore. The fighter was ready to defend the village.

While waiting, he smoked and the elephant ate. The animal was a nine-ton bull. It stood ten feet high and tore at the trees with its trunk, stuffing huge quantities of twigs and leaves into its mouth.

A birdcall sounded, the mahout announcing himself. The elephant driver came out of the trees, a bucket of rice beer in each hand. He set them in front of the elephant, there were two loud slurps, and the buckets were empty. The mahout put the buckets aside and whispered some words to the elephant. In answer, the beast curled its trunk and raised a foreleg. With the aid of these two steps the mahout climbed on its back and came to the howdah.

"Tiger coming soon," said the mahout. He brought out a cigarette and Bolan lit it for him with the end of his.

"Where is the headman?" asked Bolan.

"Coming," replied the mahout.

They fell silent, listening to the sounds of the elephant eating and to the noises of the forest.

An owl hooted. The mahout replied with a birdcall. At that the headman appeared, barefoot, rifle in hand. Montagnards often took off their footwear so they could move faster, more quietly. The mahout motioned him to come around the back. Big Bottom might get annoyed if he had to interrupt his meal to make steps. This time the mahout had it raise its hind leg. The headman climbed on it and pulled himself the rest of the way by the tail. He joined Bolan by the howdah.