She clicked the remote and a picture of a woman in a gray sackcloth dress appeared. Masuyo Steers looked beaten down and exhausted to Nash, but when he focused on the woman’s penetrating eyes, even as depicted in lusterless pixels, she appeared far more formidable.
“Is this guard your inside man?” asked Nash.
She nodded. “He is doing it simply for the money. That is the extent of his loyalty, but since it represents a treasure for both him and his family, we can count on him doing everything to make the situation successful.”
“And the extraction plan?” prompted Nash.
“It is known there that my mother is not in good health. She will suffer a serious condition that cannot be dealt with by simply taking her to the medical unit at the prison. An ambulance will be ordered to take her to a nearby hospital. The ambulance will never reach that hospital with Masuyo-san inside. It will be overtaken and my mother will be transferred to another mode of transportation.”
“And where do we come in?” asked Temple.
“You will be part of the group that overtakes the ambulance. You will be with Masuyo-san when she leaves the country and comes back here. That is why I gave you no details on breaking into the prison, which would have been impossible. Now, of course, the ambulance will have guards. They will need to be quickly overcome and left unable to communicate afterward.”
“You mean we’re supposed to kill them?” said Nash.
“Not necessarily. If they can be bound in such a way that they cannot free themselves for at least two hours. But if there is no other way . . .” She didn’t need to finish the statement.
She continued. “It is a one-hour-and-twelve-minute drive to the hospital. The overtaking of the ambulance will take place fifteen minutes into the journey at a particularly isolated spot. That means you will have just under an hour to leave the area before the hospital will contact the prison about the ambulance not arriving.”
“Unless someone gets off a communication between the time the ambulance is ambushed and the time all of them are subdued,” pointed out Nash.
“That is one of the risks, yes,” conceded Steers. “But I believe that our plan of ambush will be so effective that no such opportunity will present itself.”
“Can you tell us what that ambush plan is?” asked Nash.
She glanced at him. “You do not need to know that. Others will take care of those details.Yourmission is to accompany my mother back here.”
“Okay, but what is the transportation conveyance we will be on with your mother?” asked Nash. “I assume we need to knowthat.”
“You will be picked up by a helicopter at a spot approximately a mile south of the ambush site. There a road intersects and you will turn left onto that road. The chopper will be waiting at a clearing a few hundred yards down. That is the much faster travel option I mentioned. This will all take place at night, of course. The assault team will already be in place to stop the ambulance, which is why you do not require knowledge of the actual ambush plan. The chopper will fly you and my mother to Lashio. The distance is roughly 160 miles. The chopper can easily do that in one hour and twenty minutes. A car will be waiting for you in Lashio and will take you to Mandalay, which is a 120-mile trip and on good roads. That car journey will take no more than two and one half hours. There a private jet will be waiting. You will be wheels up within ten minutes of arrival.”
Nash said, “But why not have the chopper take us directly from the ambush site to Mandalay? I’ve studied the maps and other materials on Myanmar you provided us.” He quickly calculated the distance and time in his head. “It’s less than two hundred air miles. Your chopper could easily do that in less than two hours. We’ll be wheels up in Mandalay and out of Myanmar in half the time you just cited.”
“Very good, Mr. Hope, you show initiative and attention to detail. However, nothing is easy in Myanmar after the coup and the war that is currently going on between the junta and the various rebel factions. And the fact is that they will be searching for my mother immediately after the hospital notifies the prison of the ambulance not arriving. That will be less than one hour after your escape with my mother. They will immediately take steps to lock down all of the airports and ferries.”
“Which makes it all the more critical that we are out of the country as quickly as possible,” countered Nash. “They’ll close Mandalay Airport for sure. And even if it takes us only two hours to get there by chopper rather than by car, which is your plan, they’ll still have shut down the airport inMandalaybefore that. So how the hell do we get out?”
“I didn’t say you were flying out ofMandalayAirport, did I?” she said.
“You said we were driving to Mandalay and that it had an international-level airport!” retorted Temple, glancing at Nash.
“Mandalay is a large city, Mr. Temple. With a wide footprint, but, again, during World War II there were improvements made to further the movement of Japanese troops and equipment. A bit of additional clandestine enhancement on my part has made that long-ago improvement valuable once more.”
Nash said immediately, “You mean another runway?”
She nodded, looking impressed. “One that the junta knows nothing about.”
“But why not still have the chopper take us straight there? It will save time all around.”
“A helicopter coming into Mandalay airspace at that hour will raise immediate suspicion. It will direct the authorities to the nearby airstrip and you will all be arrested.”
“But it will be impossible to miss a jet lifting into the air,” countered Nash.
“The runway does not appear on their airspace grid. And even if they detect the plane, it will be impossible to shoot it down at a moment’s notice,” said Steers. “For that you need certain equipment that is not currently in the vicinity of Mandalay, or so my high-level contacts tell me. And Myanmar is not a large country. By the time they scramble whatever aircraft they can, you will be outside of their airspace and in another sovereign’s jurisdiction. And while my mother is important to some, she isnotimportant enough to incite an international incident.”
“But whoever operates the prisonisimportant enough to the junta’s and/or the KIA’s interests,” noted Nash. “Otherwise, why would they allow it to operate there?”
“You display an awareness of strategic elements that mildly surprises me, Mr. Hope.”
