"Maiouk!" Bolan shouted, stepping inside.

A woman screamed, faces turned, the chanting stopped.

"Anyone speak English?" he called out.

By the coffin, Ty Ling rose to her feet. "What is it you want?"

"Step this way, lady," Bolan commanded. "And tell the people if anyone moves, I shoot. I don't care how many I kill."

Ty Ling addressed the congregation in Chinese, urging calm, then moved toward the entrance through the aisle separating the men and women. Bolan panned the crowd nervously with the Kalashnikov as if he were slightly mad. It was a trick he had learned way back. No professional soldier will try anything with a madman, because you cannot judge his reaction.

Ty Ling came up. "Outside," Bolan ordered.

Ty Ling went out, and Bolan continued waving the gun back and forth. By the coffin he could see Weng Shi look at him, a puzzled expression on his face. Did he smell a rat, Bolan wondered. Was he trying to figure out how Bolan got the key to the room with his gun?

Sixteen... seventeen... eighteen. Bolan counted the seconds, giving Ty Ling time to reach the horses. "Outside" was a code word they had agreed on. It meant everything was going as planned, the horses would be by the path.

Twenty-five, Bolan counted. Ty Ling must be there. He stepped out and ran to join her. Halfway there, a gun opened up and colored tracers flew by. He spun, dropped to one knee, and sprayed the entrance. Figures fell, figures retreated, and he was back running.

He ran into the woods. Ty Ling was already on her horse, holding the reins of his mount. "Go!" he shouted and swung into the saddle as shooting broke out anew. Ty Ling spurred her mount and they galloped off, the shouting and shooting receding in the thunder of hooves and panting of horses.

They crashed through the undergrowth, keeping their heads down to avoid branches. He followed her easily, and soon they came out onto a plain and picked up speed. Now they could really fly. The terrain was flat and solid. But they were also more visible, and the mounted Tiger patrol that emerged from the tree line on the left, attracted by the gunfire, headed straight for them.

"Go right!" Bolan shouted.

"Too long!" Ty Ling shouted back.

Great! he thought. To avoid taking a longer way they were going to get themselves captured. No way could they get past that patrol... unless. Bolan dug his heels into the horse's flanks and veered to meet the patrol. He holstered the Kalashnikov and armed the offensive grenades.

Fifty yards from the patrol he lobbed the grenades and fled. The grass flashed with ear-splitting explosions, panicking the Tiger horses, making them veer, slide and rear. By the time the riders got them under control, Bolan and Ty Ling were past and entering the tree line.

They crashed through another stretch of undergrowth, Ty Ling leading all the time. They came out onto a trail and galloped along it for a mile, then turned off. Here Ty Ling stopped. In the distance they could hear the sound of the pursuing patrol.

The hoofbeats neared, the patrol rode by, and Bolan and Ty Ling exchanged smiles. They resumed their journey, at a walking pace this time. They went crosscountry, up a stream, then crossed more savanna and eventually emerged on a logging road.

"I think we're safe now," said Ty Ling.

"You're quite a pathfinder," admitted Bolan.

"I told you I could be useful."

"I need some high ground," he said.

They rode to a ridge and dismounted. Bolan set up the radio and lit a cigarette.

From inside his shirt he brought out a cloth sack and gave it to her. It contained money and jewelry.

At the sight of her jewelry she gasped in surprise.

When she had given him the sack it contained only her money. He had told her not to take anything else, so they would not be encumbered, and she had taken him literally. But after she had gone to the wake it occurred to him that he had been a little harsh, so he added the contents of her jewel box.

"No point in arriving in Germany a refugee," he said.

She held out a diamond bracelet. "For you."

"I don't wear jewelry, but thanks," he replied with a smile.

"For your wife," she said.

"I don't have one."

"You may some day."

"I doubt it," he said. "I believe in it, yeah. I'm told that love over the years makes you live longer. But I'm not made for marriage. Thanks all the same."

Ty Ling handed him the sack. "Please keep it for me." She had no pockets.

They waited for midnight. On these missions it was SOP that when a man failed to answer a radio check, his partner went on a twenty-four-hour standby, turning on the set at midnight for five minutes, three days running.

"What point is there in radioing now if they left this morning?" asked Ty Ling.

"They were supposed to leave this morning," said Bolan. "That doesn't mean they actually left. Often extract times are changed at the last moment. The weather interferes or some machinery breaks down. Things seldom work the way they're planned."

A lightning bolt zigzagged on the horizon. A storm was approaching. Already over the next range they could see a mass of dark clouds.

"It is midnight," she said, looking up from her watch.

Bolan turned on the set, gave it a half minute to warm up, then pressed the talk button. "This is Phoenix calling Nark. Over."

The radio hissed silently. Occasionally loud crackling broke in as lightning flashed. But there was no reply.

"This is Phoenix to Nark," Bolan tried again. "Come in, Nark, or Heath or anyone else."

The radio went on hissing and crackling.

"What will we do if they have left after all?" asked Ty Ling.

"I don't know yet," replied Bolan, "We could take a train as you suggested."

"Or we could try leaving by river," said Ty Ling. "It might be safer and quicker. The trains don't run every day. We could go down the Tyak River. I know a village on it. It's not far from here. They might sell us a sampan."

"There's an idea," said Bolan. He tried calling again. No answer.

A bolt of lightning lit the sky, and this time they heard a rumble. The storm was approaching fast.

"We'll have to find shelter," said Ty Ling.

"Are there any villages in the area?" asked Bolan.

"Only the village I mentioned," said Ty Ling. "On the other side of the next range."

"Phoenix to Nark," Bolan went on. To her he said, "We'll have to get you some clothes."

Ty Ling wore a white silk cheongsam. In the Orient, white is the color of mourning. Now it was shredded from their ride. But even in a torn dress she looked like a million dollars, Bolan observed. Not only was Ty Ling a beautiful woman, she had class. She told him her mother, who died when she was a child, was a Chinese princess.

"What time is it?" he asked.

"Five past," said Ty Ling.

Suddenly the radio blared. "Nark to Phoenix. Over."

Bolan started in surprise. "What do you know?" he exclaimed. He pressed the talk button. "This is Phoenix."

"Greetings," said Nark. "Where are you?"

Bolan told him his story. "What about you?"

The extract from Thailand had been canceled due to Thai air activity. The attack on the Tiger hardsite had raised something of a hornets' nest. Stony Man Farm had ordered them to cross the border into Burma where they would be safer.

"You still have the chopper?" asked Bolan.

"Negative," said Nark. "Damage was more complicated than Heath thought. That's why we couldn't come looking for you. What is your present position?"

"The name of the village," Bolan asked Ty Ling.

"Pegu," she replied.

"We're one range south of a village called Pegu," Bolan told Nark.

There was a pause as Nark checked it on the map. "You're only a day's ride from our location," said Nark.