Chapter 16

Mike still has the Narrative

“What do you think?” Vanh asked looking at the rest of us.

“It’s a bold move,” Lt. Souk said. “It just might even work. This is the route, or at least, one of them to the refinery. I would imagine that there have been other drug caravans that have passed this way,” he told us. The discussion continued for a few more minutes, but no one had a better idea.

“Alright, we’ll try it. I want a squad from the rear platoon to remain 50 meters (160 feet) behind us and one from the lead platoon the same distance ahead of us to give us warning of any trouble. Have some of the men wrap their blankets around the mules’ loads. We’ll move out in thirty minutes, once everyone has rested,” Captain Vanh directed. The Lieutenants moved out to give their platoons their new instructions. I remained with the Captain.

“Old man Kanoa seems to have a lot of experience with drug caravans. I believe he is smarter than he appears to be,” I warned him.

“We will need to keep an eye on him and his men,” Vanh agreed. The men had taken the time while we waited to have their midday meal, even though it was a cold one.

We were soon ready to depart. Most of the loads on the mules had been covered by blankets giving the appearance that we had something to hide. We descended to the road, which was mostly dirt by now and proceeded up it with a squad out in front of the main body by 100 feet (30 meters) and another one trailing us by the same distance. We were able to proceed now at a good marching speed on the reasonably flat road surface. The potholes and surface imperfections didn’t bother us or the mules much.

There was very little traffic on the road that afternoon. We were passed by two high wheel carts pulled by water buffalo. One was loaded with bags of rice and the other with vegetables. Late that afternoon, we were passed by a ten-wheel truck loaded with lumber. The disguise worked like a charm! Neither those with the carts nor the truck paid any attention to us, and they didn’t even look at us other than to be sure not to pass too close to us. All I could assume was that drug caravans were a very common sight to them, and they only thought that we were just another one on the way to the refinery.

Just past the village of Houay Dam, there was an area where we could camp. Bounmy and his assistant had rejoined us after we had passed the Nam Deng area and told us about this area. It was back far enough in the trees from the road to provide good concealment for the unit and was easily defended if necessary. That evening, after the camp was set up, the officers met with Sergeant Bounmy and his assistant.

“What have you learned?” Captain Vanh asked to start the meeting.

“The refinery is located with the sawmill on the far side of the town of Na Teuy and not far from road #13. Road #3 intersects it near the town. We will need to bypass the town to the north of it. The other approach would be through the pool at the sawmill where the logs are kept before being cut into lumber. The ground there is very marshy. It would take too long to cover the distance to the mill buildings and the refinery,” he told us.

“What about guards?” Vanh asked.

“There were a number of guards around the refinery, but it didn’t appear that they were very busy today,” Bounmy’s assistant told us. “A number of them left this afternoon,” he added.

“Left as in for somewhere else or did they just go into the village?” Lt. Souk asked.

“They appeared to go into the village, but we didn’t follow them,” Bounmy told us.

“Show us what the area looks like,” I told them, and Bounmy cleared an area on the ground and sketched the layout of the area around the sawmill and the refinery. We discussed the details of the attack and each squad’s and platoon’s responsibilities during the attack and following it.

“When is the best time to attack them?” Vanh asked Bounmy.

“I think late in the afternoon. The guards seem to leave midway through the afternoon. We should give them a little time to reach the village, so they will have a ways to go to return. Also, those working in the refinery seem to take a long break after most of the guards are gone before closing down. We saw many of them sitting outside the building,” he told us.

“That timing should work well for us. The men had a long march today, but with that timing of the attack, they won’t need to be up early in the morning. They can sleep in a little longer before we set out for Na Teuy and the attack. They can have their mid-day meal in their attack positions while they observe what is going on at the refinery and the sawmill,” I told them before the meeting broke up, and the Lieutenants went to brief their platoons on the plan and their part in it.

The Recon Squad and I were up early in the morning before the rest of the unit. We had prepared our food for the day before the remainder of the unit was up. The men would cook their food for the day and eat breakfast after wrapping the remainder of their food in banana leaves to carry with them. By the time they started, the Recon Squad and I had left to reconnoiter the approaches to the sawmill and the refinery, especially the route around the town of Na Teuy. After we were sure of the route they would follow, most of the Squad returned to where we were camped to guide them to their attack positions. Bounmy, Bane, and I remained to observe what was going on at the sawmill and the refinery.

The sawmill was a large and complex operation. It ran on steam and there was a large steam engine that ran the machinery of the mill to perform the various tasks involved in cutting the trees into usable lumber. The steam engine was connected by belts to one or possibly two-line shafts that ran through the mill and drove the other machinery by more belts. The huge main saw blade may have been driven directly by a separate line shaft to cut the trees into slabs. Other belt driven equipment pulled the trees out of the pond and moved them to the saw blade. The slabs were moved to other areas where they were cut to size and length. There was also a lot of hands-on labor involved to stack the cut lumber and to load it onto the trucks that arrived during the day. There were a good number of men from the surrounding area who worked at the mill.

The refinery was located in two buildings away from the main part of the mill complex. They were easy to identify by the number of guards around them, and the fact that those working at the mill never went near them. The first building had large double doors on the end, but the second building had mostly just a regular personnel door on the parts of the building that we could see.

“The second building is where they make the opium and the heroin. See the steam line going into it?” Bounmy asked, as we observed the facility.

“We’ll need to shut off that line at the boiler house, or it will bleed the boiler of steam when broken and could cause the boiler to blow up or have a meltdown when it runs out of water. That would put the sawmill out of business for a considerable time,” I told him.

“Who will know how to do that?” he asked.

“It will need to be my job. I’ll sneak in there early and shut the line down just before the attack begins,” I told him. Bounmy and Bane both looked at me with questioning expressions but didn’t say anything.

That morning, as we watched, two ten-wheel trucks arrived at the refinery and backed up to the large double doors of the first building one at a time. Those on the trucks unloaded their contents into the building, and the trucks then left heading back down road #13. We couldn’t see what was in the sacks they unloaded but could guess. Most of the guards that had come with them remained at the refinery. I was worried about the additional guards and said so.

“Most of the guards from the trucks remained here. That could be a problem,” I told the other two.

“Yes, things are a lot more active today than yesterday,” Bounmy agreed and sounded concerned.

By 1200 hrs., I had made up my mind to return to our base camp here and to update the officers on the present situation. The new guards were still at the refinery and showed no signs of leaving. Bounmy had also told me that the regular guards were more observant and active than they had been yesterday. This was not a good situation for us, as it would increase the difficulty of the assault, and the increased resistance of the guards could allow time for reinforcements to arrive if they were close enough, trapping us between two forces. We needed to reevaluate our plan of attack.

Bane and I left just after 1200 hrs. Bounmy remained to continue observing and would join the unit at our assembly location with any additional information. To reach our camp before they were ready to leave for the assembly location, we moved closer to Na Teuy than they would, but we didn’t believe that anyone saw us. We arrived at our camp near Houay Dam well before the unit was ready to move out. Those on guard around the camp recognized me, so we had no trouble entering the camp and went directly to where the officers were meeting before moving out.

“What’s wrong?” Lt. Souk asked, as he was the first to see us approaching the meeting.

“We have new information,” I told him and the others, who had all risen as we approached.

“What kind of information?” Captain Vanh asked.

I quickly went over what had occurred that morning, and what I believed was necessary to improve our chances of success.

“Who will be manning the roadblock on road #13?” I asked on finishing.

“It will be Sergeant Analu and his squad,” Lt. Kham told me.

“They will need to have one of the machine guns plus the gunner and his assistant with them since we don’t have any mines to put in the road. We have no idea how far those trucks went when they left the refinery, or how close any reinforcements might be. I didn’t see any signs of a radio antenna there, but if they have a military radio, the antenna could be rather small,” I told them.

“Who knows where they are to set up the ambush?” Lt. Kham asked.

“Corporal Bane knows the location, and he will guide them to it,” I told him.

“That leaves us with only one machine gun for the attack. Where is it to be located?” Captain Vanh asked.

“Sergeant Bounmy has the location, and he will position the gun,” I told him, as we had worked all of this out while observing what happened that morning.

“Where will you be?” Vanh asked next.

“I will go ahead of the assault force and slip into the boiler house at the sawmill to cut off steam to the refinery just prior to the attack. If the steam is still on to the refinery and the line is broken, it would bleed off all of the steam from the boiler and lower the water level. This could cause it to explode or collapse, putting the sawmill out of business. This would cause a financial hardship on the entire area and especially those who work there. This is not something we want to do,” I told him.

“Why did Rattikone set up his refinery there then?” Vanh wondered.

“Exactly because of what I have said. He probably thought that no one would look there or attack the refinery because of damaging the sawmill,” I told him.

“Maybe ... maybe not,” Vanh said. “But I agree with you. The people here need the jobs the sawmill provides, and it wouldn’t be correct to destroy it,” he agreed.

“I will speak to all of the platoons before we set out and explain the changes to them. We need to be sure that we take all of our ammunition with us, so we can deal with these new guards,” Vanh told his officers before the meeting broke up, and the Lieutenants left to update their platoons. I remained to speak to the Captain.

“What about the mules?” I asked.

“They will follow us but by the road. They will wait close to the town and join us when the fighting is over. We will need them to evacuate the wounded and the dead. Mr. Nai will be waiting for us near here when we return. The wounded can be moved to the trucks then and taken to the hospital in Luang Nam Tha,” he told me.

“Very good. Bane and I will eat now and rest until we are ready to leave,” I told him. Captain Vanh then went to speak to each of the platoons and also to Mr. Kanoa and the men in charge of the mules.

We left for the assembly area near the refinery at 1500 hrs. It would take more time to move the entire unit than it had taken Bane and me to make the trip back here. The march was through and around the trees. The men were used to moving through the forest in a column of twos by now, and they were very quiet. Nothing of significance happened, and those from the Recon Squad were there to guide us past the various difficult areas. We arrived at the assembly area in good order.

The men would rest in this area until it was time to move to the attack locations. They would check their weapons and ammunition again to be sure everything was ready. They could eat whatever food they had brought with them. Bounmy arrived with the latest information on the refinery and the guards shortly after we had arrived. He didn’t have any new information or any changes about what we knew. He would guide the machine gunner to his prepared location when they moved out.

Bane and Sergeant Analu’s squad plus the other machine gunner left early to go to their ambush site on road #13. I left with them but left them near the sawmill. I would need to slip into the boiler house a few minutes before the attack was to begin, but I had time to rest for a bit before doing that.

Checking my watch a bit later, I saw that I had ten minutes until the attack was scheduled to start. Getting up, I began to slip silently from where I had waited down the slope toward the building where the boiler was located. I could see several guards over by the refinery in the slowly fading light, but they apparently couldn’t see me slipping from tree to tree in the shadows, as I made my way toward the building. The last thirty feet (9 meters) or so was over open ground, but I had the building between me and those at the refinery.

Having made it to the boiler house, I moved along the side of the building toward its front. A quick peek around the corner of the building from a low elevation showed that the coast was clear, and I moved across the front of the building to the door. Fortunately, it wasn’t locked. In fact, it didn’t even have a lock. Easing the door partway open, I slipped inside. It was fairly dark inside as the few windows were covered by years of soot and grime.

There was an older man in there tending to the boiler. He was alone and was checking the gauges for the pressure and the water level of the boiler. The fire door was open, and I could see that the fire was somewhat reduced already. The pressure gauge also indicated that the pressure in the boiler was down to about 45 psi or so. This certainly wasn’t enough pressure to operate the equipment of the mill which would require a hundred to a hundred and fifty pounds of pressure at least. Since the mill was closed down for the night, it made sense that the pressure would be reduced.

I still needed to shut off the steam to the refinery. Looking around, I could see that most of the lines and the boiler itself were very old and covered with ashes and dirt. All except for one valve and the line that came off of it. It was much newer and brighter than the other lines. The old man was smiling on seeing where I was looking. He hadn’t said anything or made any moves. He only looked at me and smiled.

“Opium refinery?” I asked in Thai pointing to the valve. He only nodded at the valve where the line started. I quickly looked at my watch. It was time, and I reached out and turned the valve to the off position. The handle was hot but not something I couldn’t deal with. The old man was smiling as I did this and then left the building. I gave him time to get away before looking out of the building toward the refinery buildings.

The attack started just as I looked out the door. Bringing my rifle up, I fired at the two men on guard in front of the first building. Both of them went down as the fire from the three platoons intensified. The remaining guards seemed shocked and confused by the fire from three sides of them. There was little or no cover in the vicinity of the refinery, as the area around it had been cleared to give good observation of threats. They started to return fire but didn’t appear to be very accurate with their fire. Many were picked off by our men. More guards emerged from the first building, but they didn’t appear to be any better shots or have any cover either. Some retreated back into the building.

The firefight didn’t last long, as the guards, those still alive, soon ran out of ammunition. It appeared that they didn’t carry a lot of ammunition while on guard. Once out of ammunition, they quickly decided to leave the area rather than die, and they took off through the sawmill. Some of them actually made it. Others were taken out before reaching cover.

“Cease fire ... cease fire!” Lt. Keo shouted following that, and the firing gradually tapered off. The fire fight hadn’t lasted more than five minutes due to the guards running out of ammunition. This left only those who had retreated into the first building and those in the refinery building to be dealt with.

Once the firing stopped, half of each platoon moved down to check on the dead and the wounded, and to secure the exterior of the site. The other half of each platoon remained on over-watch in case of the arrival of reinforcements or other trouble. I joined those securing the site to check on those I had shot. Both proved to be dead.

A couple of the guards had been wounded, and they had been taken prisoner. We had questions that needed answers, and they were brought over to where Lt. Keo and I were at the front of the building. There were only two of them. One was in very bad shape, but the other one only had a minor wound. Keo and I moved to question him.

“How many guards were in the building?” Keo asked to begin.

“Maybe eight,” the prisoner answered after a little persuasion.

“How many are in the other building?” Keo asked next.

“Maybe ten or twelve. We don’t go in there and see them only occasionally. They are the ones who make the opium,” he told us after Sergeant Bounmy drew his knife. He had just joined us, and I had a question for the prisoner.

“Why did you run out of ammunition so quickly?” I asked, and Bounmy translated.

“The boss was one of the first ones killed. He is the only one who knew where the keys are hidden to the room where the opium, the ammunition, and the money are kept. They only allow us to have a little ammunition while on guard,” he told us while pointing to one of the men I had shot at the start of the attack.

“We need to get the others out of the buildings before we can do anything else,” Lt. Keo told the Platoon Sergeants who had accompanied their men to secure the site. The men in the meantime had surrounded the two buildings and were waiting for instructions.

“We could burn them out,” one of the Platoon Sergeants suggested.

“That could be very dangerous with the wind that has come up,” Lt Keo told him, and he was looking at me for a suggestion. This was indeed a serious decision, as we needed to finish here before reinforcements could arrive. Unfortunately, I didn’t have an answer for what to do.

That is, I didn’t until two small black cardboard containers appeared in the air in front of me. I managed to grab both of them before they fell to the ground. Lt. Keo and the others were staring at me with surprised expressions.

The containers were about 2.5 inches (6.5 cm) in diameter and a bit over 6 inches (15.5 cm) in length. I immediately knew what they contained.

“What are those?” Keo asked looking at the containers.

“Gas grenades,” I told him and held up the first container, which was marked.

“This one holds a smoke grenade, and the other one holds a tear gas grenade. We can force the men out of the buildings with them,” I told him and the others.

“We have no protection from tear gas,” Keo stated immediately.

“We don’t need to go into the buildings. We only need to force those inside to come out. Our men can stand well back from the buildings, and collect those who come stumbling out,” I told him with a smile, but had a question.

“How do we gain access to the refinery building? Where are the doors located?” I asked not having seen many during our observations.

“There are large doors on the long sides of both buildings. They can both be entered that way,” Sergeant Ai answered, as he’d had people checking on that.

“Good, let’s toss the smoke grenade into the refinery building and then the tear gas grenade into the first building. Keep our men well back from both buildings, but don’t allow anyone to escape when they come out. Later, when the smoke has cleared out of the refinery building, we can go in and check on things,” I told them.

“Why don’t we just burn both of them down,” one of the other sergeants asked.

“Didn’t you hear what the prisoner said about the money and the ammunition. We’ll want the money and can use the ammunition. The opium can be burned with the buildings later,” I told him.

“How are we going to do this?” Lt. Souk asked, as he had just joined us.

“I’ll take the grenades with me and go up the open space between the buildings. Someone will need to go with me to cover me while I get the doors open, as they are probably locked by now. Once open, I’ll toss the grenades into the buildings. Then we wait for those inside to come out. It shouldn’t take long. It would be a good idea to have a few select men fire into the buildings to keep those inside occupied while I work on the doors,” I told them.

The Platoon Leaders and their Sergeants went to inform the men of the plan leaving Bounmy and me alone.

“I guess that it’s up to us to get this done,” he told me in a resigned voice. We waited until everyone was in their new position before moving out. I had already opened the containers and removed the grenades. I gave Bounmy the tear gas grenade to hold while I took the smoke grenade. We quickly moved up the space between the buildings, as several of the men started firing into the first building. There was also a limited amount of firing into the refinery building.

We were nearly run over on reaching the doors of the refinery by those inside trying to escape from the few rounds that had been fired into the building. We allowed them to go down the side of the buildings that we had just come up but blocked the other direction. There were people down there to collect them.

“Well that solved one problem,” Bounmy said with a grin, as the last of those from the refinery building moved down between the buildings.

We could also hear shouting coming from the first building. It appeared that firing into the buildings had produced some unexpected results. I could hear the exchange between Sergeant Kale and those inside. Though it was in Hmong, my amulet translated it for me, just as it had been doing since Chanthra had presented it to me.

“Don’t shoot, we’re coming out,” I heard one of those inside shouting.

“Come out with your hands up. Leave the weapons inside. Anyone with a rifle will be shot,” Sergeant Kale replied. There was a pause in the conversation then. I could still hear those inside arguing, but it wasn’t clear enough to understand what was said. A number of seconds passed after the talking ended.

“We are coming out,” a voice called again, and we could hear and see our people moving to collect those who came out.

“It looks like these weren’t needed after all,” Bounmy said with a smile, as the containers appeared in front of us. On returning the grenades to their proper container and closing them, the two containers vanished. Bounmy and I returned to the front of the buildings.

At the front of the building, we could see that the men had already begun securing the prisoners and separating those from the first building from those from the refinery. Lt. Souk was waiting for us, while Lt. Keo supervised securing the prisoners.

“Are we ready to inspect the refinery?” he asked.

“Yes, are you the one going with us?” I asked.

“Yes, the Captain will be down later,” he told us, and we returned to the side door of the refinery building. There were some battery-powered lights and some oil lamps burning in there, but the building had no electricity. There were numerous work benches and glassware plus other equipment partially visible. The high windows in the walls provided no real illumination now, as it was growing dark.

We weren’t particularly interested in how they produced the opium or what they used. Instead, we moved directly toward the large, locked door that was just visible at the end of the building. That is, we weren’t interested in the equipment until I spotted the radio sitting on a counter.

“Uh-oh!” I said on seeing it, just before we heard someone start speaking Hmong and asking for a specific individual. Bounmy picked up the radio and answered the caller.

“He isn’t here now. He went out to see what the problem was. He’ll be back soon,” Bounmy told whoever was calling in Hmong. He received an angry answer and just smiled.

“There was a little disturbance, but the guards took care of it,” he told whoever was on the other end. Whoever it was, was quiet for a time before telling him to send the relief force back when they arrived, before cursing some and signing off.

“We are going to need to reinforce the ambush squad on road #13. They will need, at least, another squad to deal with the two trucks of reinforcements,” I told Lt. Souk.

“Yes, I’ll send a message to the Captain. They will need to leave immediately,” he told me before hurrying outside to send the message.

“We are going to need to finish up here quickly,” I told Bounmy, before we hurried toward the door to the secure room. Even with the battery lights, we could see that it was heavily reinforced, and there were three locks on the door.

“Where are the keys?” Bounmy asked.

“I have no idea, but it would take a while to break into that room,” I told him. “Time that we don’t have,” I added just before the three locks fell to the floor with a clang, and the door opened by itself.

“How...!” Bounmy started but didn’t know what else to say.

“It appears that the Amulets were listening to our conversation. Remember, they can do things that others can’t,” I reminded him with a grin.

We quickly entered the room then to find it nearly full of processed opium and some heroin. There were also 20 full boxes of ammunition, and a good size safe. Lt. Souk rejoined us then. I turned to Bounmy.

“Get some men in here to remove the ammunition,” I told him, and he quickly left. Lt Souk was looking at the safe, but he had a question.

“How did you get in here so fast?” he asked.

“The Amulets removed the locks on the door,” I told him. I was also looking at the safe.

“How do we get it open?” he asked. “We can’t take it with us. It’s much too large and heavy,” he added.

“Have you ever opened a safe?” I asked.

“Only my uncle’s. He was old, couldn’t see things up close, and he had the shakes. I had the combination from him,” he told me.

“The same here,” I told him. “Shall we try?” I asked as there wasn’t really anything else we could do.

“Alright, I’ll try,” Souk said and knelt to try to open it. Shortly, Bounmy returned with a squad or two of men to remove the boxes of ammunition. He passed them out to those waiting.

“Have Mr. Kanoa and the mules arrived?” I asked him.

“They were just arriving as we started in here,” he told me, but was looking at Lt. Souk who wasn’t having any luck opening the safe.

“Argh!” he finally muttered in disgust. “As old and battered as this thing looks, someone must have oiled the locking mechanism, as I couldn’t hear or feel the tumblers,” he said in disgust and standing up.

“Let me try,” Bounmy told him taking his place, and he began turning the dial. He started over several times, but had no more luck than Lt. Souk had and finally gave up in disgust. Time was slipping away, and we needed to get out of here.

As if to signal it was time to leave, we heard firing coming from the direction of road #13. It appeared that our people had sprung the ambush on the arriving reinforcements.

“I’m going to check on the situation. Don’t be much longer,” Souk told us and hurried out.

“That leaves just me to try to open this thing,” I told Bounmy and knelt on the floor. As soon as I touched the dial, I started hearing numbers in my mind. I turned the dial in the direction indicated and stopped on the first number. This was followed by other numbers. After six numbers, I reached up and pulled the handle down, and the door of the safe opened. Bounmy was staring at me in absolute amazement.

“How could...?” he started as the door opened all of the way, and his eyes popped out on seeing what was inside.