Free Cambodian Hellhole by Stephen Mertz Page A

Lon Ky even more closely now.
    There was something about the Cambodian, something that set Stone's teeth on edge and raised the short hairs on the nape of his neck.
    Something.
    "Let's get out of here," he ordered, already suiting action to words. "We've got another seven miles to cover before dark."

Chapter Nine
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    "T here's nothing," Wiley whispered bitterly before he passed the glasses over. "Not a goddamned thing."
    Hog was not speaking literally, of course. The camp was there, as predicted, laid out before them like a child's fort, lacking only toy soldiers on the walls. Lacking, in fact, any sign of life at all.
    Stone took the binoculars from Hog and raised them to his eyes, careful not to give himself away by any sudden disturbance of the undergrowth that sheltered him from prying eyes. He scanned the camp, alert for any signal that the prisoners and troops were down there waiting for him.
    And he came up empty.
    Cursing underneath his breath, Stone made a second careful scan of the alleged prison compound, taking his time and committing every relevant detail to memory as he went.
    The compound was located on an island in the middle of a sluggish river, an ideal defensive position—but one that could also work against the defenders in some ways. While frontal assault would be out of the question, neither could the troops inside—if there were any troops—take full advantage of the combat stretch provided by the surrounding countryside.
    Stone had mobility; the camp's defenders were hemmed in by walls.
    But where were they?
    The compound was surrounded by an eight-foot bamboo fence, its poles topped with wicked concertina wire. A soldier could get hung up there while snipers picked him off, and they would have to find some other way inside if they decided to go in. No point in ending up like flies on flypaper, waiting to be swatted.
    The only gate in the surrounding fence was facing to Stone's left, and it opened directly onto a wooden bridge that spanned one channel of the river, keeping the camp in touch with the opposite shore. From the land end of the bridge, a narrow footpath had been worn into the grass and underbrush, winding away into the jungle, disappearing in the general direction of some rocky hills just visible beyond the treetops.
    Lon Ky noticed the direction of Stone's gaze and spoke to him in a muffled whisper.
    "Mines there," he said by way of explanation.
    Stone knew they would be mining iron or phosphates—possibly even gold. Prisoners of war would make an ideal forced-labor force for the mines, certainly. But there was still no evidence of anyone in residence at the camp below.
    Well, almost no evidence.
    Inside the compound, one of perhaps a dozen huts of varied sizes was flying a Cambodian flag. The flag was not new, but neither was it unduly tattered or faded. It might easily serve for the standard of a jungle outpost, still in service.
    Or, he told himself, it might as easily have been abandoned, left behind by careless color guardsmen when they stripped the camp before departing for another bivouac.
    Obviously there was but one way to resolve the problem. They could not afford to sit here, watching while the afternoon of their third day on the trail turned into evening. Someone would have to get inside the camp and check it out firsthand, at close range.
    Someone like Mark Stone.
    "I'm going in," he told Wiley and Loughlin as he shrugged out of his Alice pack, setting his assault rifle aside.
    "Count me in," Hog said, likewise wrestling out of his traveling gear.
    "It's strictly one-man-in," Stone told him, his tone leaving no room for argument.
    "Fine," the driver answered. "So I'll give you some close-range support, okay?"
    Stone could find no logical reason for objecting. He had worked with Wiley long enough to know that the big man was entirely capable of moving stealthily and silently through the jungle. He would not give himself away—and he could be invaluable if