Cáel Defeats The Illuminati: Part 10

Sibeal Pays A Visit.

Book 3 in 18 parts, By FinalStand. Listen to the ► Podcast at Explicit Novels.

It is selfish to believe that your family will always love you. At some point you will be asked to earn it

{Right where we left off}

It was H-hour plus four.

 A Thai soldier fired another burst from his T A R 21. The other four soldiers around him did the same. They were using an overturned car as cover. He saw movement at a building across the street to his right. He fired off another few rounds. The figure fell to the ground. By hard-earned experience, he realized the enemy soldier had probably dived for cover, not been hit.

"Time to fall back. One block back," he hoped he didn't sound too shrill. "You two go first," he indicated the two townsfolk.

His battalion major had drafted them minutes after the attack began. Any organized supply depot had been an open invitation for an artillery strike, so he had called for civilians to help carry the ammunition loads instead. These two had been attached to his platoon. Now they were with him.

They nodded, hefted up the crate of 5.56mm and sprinted toward the rear while his men gave them cover fire. They made it. He named off two of his other men. It was their turn to go. After their sprint to safety, it was time for him and the last two to go. They ran past some terribly close flanking fire, but all made it.

This Thai soldier wasn't the squad leader, or even the squad's second in command. He was a lowly Phon Thahan (Private, not 1st Class). Those two men were already dead. No, he was a common soldier who found other men listening to his orders so, by default, he was in command. His initial squad of ten had shrunk down to three. The fourth man had been part of the regimental staff, a driver, sent into the firefight to replace losses. He still could point and shoot, which was all that mattered at the moment.

At the next block he found the two civilians. His men dumped their empty clips on them, then positioned themselves for the next enemy rush. The leader of this ad hoc force took the driver over to the far corner of the building they sheltered behind. Too often, going inside buildings was a death trap. The enemy would corner you then call in their artillery.

"Guard this corner," he told the driver. "I'll be checking up on you." The frightened soldier nodded, then took up his post. Now he had a few seconds to consider his position. He was running out of town to retreat through. Behind him lay open fields. Just then he saw the tale-tell site of a Dragon Anti-Tank missile firing from the next raised roadway to his rear-right.

He couldn't see if it hit anything. There was no huge explosion. Still, it indicated that other elements of his battalion were in the fight. From what little briefing he had been given when the attack started, the major had placed his heavy machine guns and recoilless rifles on each flank to stop the enemy's mobile forces from getting around his command and surrounding them.

Little did the soldier understand he was involved in a textbook defense by foot-bound infantry versus armored opponents. His two townsmen were busy shoving bullets into the thirty round magazines. His men had already engaged the enemy to the front. Gone were the cries of 'got him'. No one gave a damn anymore. They were too exhausted to care. Now they counted the comrades they had left, not the possible number of enemy out there.

Six minutes later he heard the sound of death coming his way.

"Everyone down," he screamed a second before an artillery round flattened their shelter. For a few moments all he could do was gaze up at the heavens. His body hurt, his ears were ringing and the belief that he could stop now, he had given it his best shot and his part in this battle were over.

He pulled himself and examined what he had left. He wasn't hurt if you didn't count the blood coming out his ears. He couldn't say the same for his companions. One of the townsmen had the top of his head torn off, his soulless eyes gazing up to the forever. One of his men had a smoking chunk of meat where his spine should have been. A second one was nursing a bad leg wound.

The third soldier? He was already up and firing. The second townsmen was a bit dazed, yet looked like he could carry on. The soldier crouch-ran to check on the driver. He was laying on his belly. For a second he mourned for that fellow then the man got off a burst, then scooted back. He had been 'playing possum' in order to draw some enemy out. He was alive and fighting.

"We have got to get out of here," he told the man. "Get to the elevated road across the field then provide cover fire for the rest of us." The driver acknowledged the command, fired off one more burst then bolted for the field. The Thai made his way back to his other survivors. He gave them the same order, the civilian first.

The wounded man? He couldn't make it with that leg wound and if any of the others carried him they would most likely die too.

"Cover us as long as you can," he ordered. The wounded shoulder crawled to the corner to relieve the only standing soldier.

"Go," he ordered that man. Off he sprinted. The leader placed two spare clips next to the wounded man, wished him luck, then it was his turn to sprint to safety. Close to the end, a few bullets hurried him along. He found the others had made it unwounded as well. The townsman was already shoving more bullets into the empty magazines.

To his right was the remnants of the squad with the recoilless rifle and a light machine gun. To his left was a group of six Thahan Phran, paramilitary border guards. He rejoined the firing line. The enemy had overrun the buildings closest to them and were faced with the same quandary he had just overcome, the open field. When a man tapped his shoulder he nearly jumped out of his skin.

It was his company commander.

"You've been doing well. I'm placing you in command of this section. We have a Carl Gustav (another version of a recoilless rifle) in the trees over there," the Captain pointed to the right. Hold this position as long as you can. Help is on the way."

Before this fight, the soldier had dreaded this officer. He had been so pompous, so spit-and-polished and arrogant. Now he saw different qualities in the man. He was cool under fire, had his mind on the bigger picture of the fight and the discipline he had instilled in his men was paying dividends the private soldier hadn't appreciated at that time.

"You are Sip Tho (corporal) now," the officer told him. With that declaration, the common foot soldier had inherited 13 more men, the squad of seven to his right and the six Thahan Phran to his left. Combined with his two that made something more like a combat command. The Captain made his way back up the line. The Thai didn't have long to appreciate his promotion. Smoke shells began detonating between his position and the town, obscuring the place.

"Remember," he shouted. "Short, controlled bursts and only shoot at something that you know is out there!" With that, he had established his command of the situation. Several explosions detonated in the wooded position. Half a minute later, a tank appeared and pumped another H E into the position. In doing so, it exposed its side to Thai's section.

The two men manning his Dragon launcher looked his way. It was a shot at a 45 degree angle and any heavy weapons fire would bring about all kinds of hate.

"Fire," he ordered. The man aiming the device took a few seconds then let loose. The rocket didn't penetrate the side, but it did knock a track out.

"Now we are going to get it," the Thai mumbled.

A few heartbeats later, a larger TOW missile slammed into it from a position to his command's rear. This time the tank blew up. Of equal importance to the soldier's mind, there were men behind him and that could only mean, the second regiment had finally arrived. He was sure he wouldn't be falling back any further, giving the invaders one more inch of sacred Thai soil. It also meant his men would most likely live to see the end of the day. That mattered too.  

It was H-hour plus six.

 Two hour earlier, elements of the Vietnamese People's Army's 314th Mechanized regiment and 206th Tank Regiment with the Mobile battalion of the Laotian 1st Division and the Khanate's Laos Force Command slammed into Khon Kaen. By that time, the small city had already seen its share of hell. Khanate forces had stormed the regional airport with an aerial assault at 4:10 AM that morning.

There were no dedicated combat troops in Khon Kaen. It was the HQ for both the Royal Thai 3rd Division and its component 1st regiment. That had resulted in a see-saw battle until the relief force arrived from the north. After that, resistance had collapsed. Over three hundred men surrendered. A hundred miles to the north forces in the town of Udon Thani, battalions of the 1st and 2nd regiments of the 3rd Division were still in combat with Laotian and Vietnamese forces. The final outcome of that battle had yet to be decided.

What did matter was that the entire command structure of northeast of Thailand had been neutered. There were five more battalions out there that had no idea what to do next. They suffered from sporadic air attacks, but nothing serious was coming their way.

What none of them were aware of was that a Far North Force out of the Laotian highlands had broken a battalion of the Royal Thai's 6th Infantry Division, taken Roi Et and severed the communications between the two formations. At Roi Et, the Khanate armored spearhead had left elements of the 2nd Regiment of Lao's 4th Division to hold the airport and was blazing a trail westward along Highway 23, to the south/rear of those five battalions.

South of Roi Et, two other Thai battalions were grudgingly giving ground to a regiment of Vietnam's 305th Division plus the 270th Combat Engineers and 16th Artillery Brigade. What mattered was that those forces were drawing off the efforts of the 6th Divisions to counteract the invasion.

The 6th Division had its own litany of woes. It was the subject of a dozen pinpricks. The division's commander had lost contact with the other two divisions under the 2nd Army's command. He had enemy forces to his north around Amnat Charoen, he'd lost contact with this 1st regiment HQ at Roi Et.

His second regiment, at Ubon Ratchathani, was heavily engaged with the Alliance's North Force. His 3rd regiment, spread out along the southern approaches to his life line, Highway 24, had discovered small teams of Special Forces at every bridge and crossing, making every attempt at creating a unified front costly and ultimately futile.

The 2nd Army's HQ and supply hub were at Nakhon Ratchasima. They were under attack, the airport had fallen and the sole mechanized regiment (minus one battalion) was having a terrible time retaking it. They were presently incapable of coming to his defense, since their third battalion had already been called to the capital to put down unrest/enemy forces.

He finally made his decision. The remnants of the 1st regiment were to retire westward over the back roads towards the division headquarters at the Si Sa Ket Railway Station. The second regiment was to hold in place until sunset. Using all of the division's remaining assets, he was going to secure Highway 24 so that his command could retire using that path before they were cut off and defeated one regiment at the time.  

It was H-hour plus seven.

 For one of the drivers in a Khanate Heavy Mountain Supply Zuun, there wasn't much to love about this mission. He was a truck driver with a weapon, not a true foot soldier. He was content with his role in logistics, which was why his current mission scared the crap out of him. He wasn't in an armored vehicle and was accompanied by only one Fast Zuun ~ by its very nature a lightly armored unit. Now he was driving deep into enemy territory with a truckload of Karin freedom fighters, who also were lightly equipped.

He had already reached the first goal, the town of San Buri, 270 kilometers behind enemy lines and only 60 kilometers from downtown Bangkok. There was a fear that his own air force would mistake then for an enemy supply column and shoot them up. Then there was the fear that some rear echelon troops would find the convoy suspicious and fill his unarmed vehicle with holes. His luck held, the enemy were looking to the north and east, not at a group of trucks heading south.

Soldiers from the rebel faction of the Thai Royal Army were stationed in each vehicle to cover any conversation with the local constabulary that might come up. The cover story was that the unit was driving with a purpose ~ the capital was under attack and they were reinforcements using back roads to avoid airstrikes ~ the phone network was a mess and the fact that the plan was so audacious, the normal police officers didn't feel the need to slow the military trucks down.

The last phase was pure madness. They rolled down Road 304 at 80 kph. Every time they approached a checkpoint, the unit's commander called in a hopefully faux airstrike, on both them and the Thai soldiers. That made it plausible for the convoy to race forward as the troops around them were too busy diving for cover to stop them. If anything, the defenders thought those truck drivers were the bravest men they'd ever seen.

At the end of the journey, they rolled across the Road 304 Bridge over the Chao Praya River, then dispersed. Each truck disgorged 16 Karin fighters, for a total of 560. To that was added the 100 members of the Fast Zuun and 35 drivers, three Tigr's and 59 combat troops. Miracles of miracles, they found the capital to be in total chaos.  

It was H-hour plus 6 and a half.

 The Turkish Khanate commander of 100 looked south in the direction of In Buri. He was already in the 'spread chaos' phase of his operation. The central part of In Buri was the junction of Highways 11 and 32. Somewhere to the far north, friendly units were fighting their way to him. Forces retreating south, or reinforcements from Bangkok would have to pass through his position. He commandeered some passing civilian vehicles and created barricades on all three sides of the T-cloverleaf.

Before long, the ground elements of an Airmobile Zuun had joined him. That allowed him to deploy several two-man observer teams over the surrounding countryside. He left two AFV's on the bridge and camouflaged the others in the best ambush points he could think of. Then, he waited.  

It was H-hour plus eight.

 For Julia Atwood, this was the culmination of twenty-five years working in Asia, covering a host of military conflicts and both natural and man-made humanitarian disasters. She'd gotten a tip two days earlier that Bangkok Thailand was going to be the place to be. Since she wasn't a known anti-government reporter, her entry into the country had been easy enough.

She had spent the previous day picking a city guide, luckily finding one she knew well, and looking around for sources of information about 'trouble'. What she found was a quiet city on the edge of an explosion. The police, paramilitary forces and the military had everything battened down tight. At the same time, the population was extremely anxious over the upcoming loyalist offensive against the rebel northwest.

The military had clamped down on all information coming out of the prospective war zones while exhorting on all forms of mass media the sacred traditions of Thai national identity and the need for law and order. That made the hairs on the back of Julia's neck tingle. It spoke of an upcoming shit storm. Still, Day One had been a bust. Few people wanted to talk about what was going on; all known opposition leaders were in prison or in exile.

She had awakened early in the morning to the sound of heavy weapons fire. She had been in enough war zones to know the difference between grenades exploding, or pistol, assault rifle, machine gun, and tank fire. She was hearing tank fire, which made no sense. The Thai army didn't need to use their tank's big guns to fire at anything the opposition could bring to bear.

She slipped out the back of her hotel to avoid any possible police minder, gathered up her guide and went hunting for the story. Twice she barely avoided roving army patrols. What immediately occurred to her was these soldiers didn't seem to know what was going on. They were jumpy (not good) and nervous (great for a story).

Her trained ears and years of instinct led her to one of the eyes of the storm. Julia's jaw nearly dropped open. There were Central Asian men riding around in Russian equipment surrounded by throngs of hundreds, possibly thousands, of Thai 'Red Shirt' protestors marching on a police barricade. Several leaders of the movement had bullhorns and were communicating with the police. It was a tense situation.

Julia forced her way to the BMP-3M, then shouted up at the commander standing in the copula. She tried Uzbek. The man looked her way.

"No. I'm Kazak. My Uzbek isn't very good," he replied. Julia's Kazak wasn't the best in the world, but she endeavored to make it work.

"What are you doing here?"

"I could ask you the same thing," the man smiled. "We are part of the Alliance effort to bring about democratic change in this country." Julia knew he was spouting the party line.

"What are you really doing here?" she pressed.

"I have no idea," he chortled. "I don't speak this language, don't know who these people are and only found out where Thailand was two days ago."

"Are there a lot of you here?"

"Not really."

"How did you get here?"

"We landed at the airport. We are a portion of an airmobile Zuun."

Just then one of the protestors tried to get the unit leader's attention. He kept repeating something.

"He wants you to advance on the police line and look menacing," she translated.

"Okay," the Khanate officer shrugged. "That I can do."

He spoke rapid fire Kazak, which Julia couldn't quite follow. Her ride lurched forward, the crowd parted and she could see the blood drain out of the police commander's face. Without looking her way, the Kazak spoke to Julia.

"Tell them they have thirty seconds to put down their arms or I'm going to shred the lot of them."

Julia thought about it for a second. She was recording this exchange on her camcorder. She knew this was straying dangerously close to becoming a participant, not a reporter. She translated to the Thai young man. He sprinted toward the police and relayed the message. She had no idea what a 100mm fragmentation shell would do, had an idea how bloody a 30mm auto-cannon could get and had great familiarity with the effectiveness of 12.7 & 7.62mm machine guns.

The lead protestor had a rapid discussion with the lead policeman, bowing and begging for this situation to be resolved peacefully. The countdown reached eight when the officer indicated his acquiescence. The mob didn't surge forward victoriously. Julia slapped the turret to get the Kazak's attention.

"You don't need to fire."

"I understand that," the man acknowledged. It wasn't over though. Another protestor, a woman, waved for the Kazak's attention. Since she wasn't alone in doing so, the man hadn't noticed her. What she was saying did get Julia's attention.

"She is saying that tanks are on the way!" she shouted at the man in the copula.

"Which direction?" he inquired. Julia confirmed the information relayed by the girl, who double checked with the person on the other end of her phone, worked out the terrain in her head, then drew a quick map on her palm.

"They are coming up the road one block up. They are heading north toward us."

"Clear out the crowd," he responded evenly. He once more ordered his unit to action. One of the Tigr's raced forward and disgorged its men close to the next corner then the vehicle withdrew.

"What do you plan to do?" she asked.

"Do what I came here to do, kill the enemy."

"But they have tanks."

"Fortunately I have things that kill tanks," he grinned.

"Do you mind if I stick around?"

"It is your life," he shrugged. The BMP moved forward to the point where, with its barrel turned sideways, the vehicle was just short of exposing itself. He was busy talking to someone else.

Seconds later, one of the Khanate soldiers at the corner launched a grenade up the street, then two others opened fire with their assault rifles. They ducked back around the corner right as a larger caliber machine gun chewed up the wall as well as the street in front of her. Two other soldiers fired off flares into the sky.

"You might want to get down," the Kazak advised her. Julia nodded, jumped off and ran to the corner to join the other troopers. She edged around the corner, leading with her camcorder. Sure enough, up the street was an honest-to-God tank, with others behind it. One of the foot-bound Kazaks was busy shouting at the others. Once more, a soldier fired a grenade at the tank, to no visible effect. This time he apparently got the response the Kazaks wanted.

The tank's big gun fired. One of the troopers, mindful of Julia, grabbed her as they propelled themselves to the ground. The world exploded. Julia was doing a quick check of her well-being when she heard the BMP race forward, barrel turned perpendicular down the street and then it fired. Julia barely caught it all on her camera. The IFV had fired an anti-tank missile out of its main gun. The oncoming tank was a Ukrainian made T-84 Oplot.

It exploded; the turret flying away in a curtain of flame. This time it was the blast that blew Julia to the ground. A Kazak soldier hefted her up and pulled her to safety. He was truly pissed when she dodged back into the danger zone to retrieve her camcorder. She sighed happily when she found it undamaged. The BMP rolled back behind cover.

"Get down," the Kazak ground pounder growled. "It is about to get a whole lot worse."

"How?" she looked at him.

"Well, now that we have stopped the column from moving," he grinned like a maniac. That wasn't much of an answer. Then she noted all the Kazaks clutching at the concrete sidewalks. She did likewise. Seconds later, she heard the jets. 'Oh God', she gulped. She'd seen more than her fair share of airstrikes. She had never been this close to one.

Out of the corner of her eye she noticed the Thai crowd moving closer.

"Get down," she screamed in Thai. "Get Down!"

Others repeated her warning and the crowed went down to their knees. Then came the thunder. Julia could barely make out the whoosh of missiles before the detonating rockets and missiles shook her world.

A stubby-winged jet raced past her vision. The pilot had gotten so damn close to the building tops she could make out every feature of his aircraft. This level of caution where civilians were concerned was surprisingly unlike the Khanate. She tried to stand, but the soldier next to her had wrapped an arm around her.

"They come in twos," he cautioned her.

Sure enough another series of explosions rocked her surroundings. No sooner had she gotten to her feet, the Kazak commander shouted,

"They are coming around for another pass, then we go!"

A series of passes followed with the jets using auto-cannons on whomever was left out there.

Julia pushed away from her guardian and rushed up to the BMP officer.

"Wait," she called to him. Stunningly, he waited, looking at her. "Let the crowd save the survivors. This is their struggle too."

"If the soldiers fire on them there will be little I can do," he responded.

"Give them a chance."

Against all her expectations, he did. The crowd moved to discover the carnage visited on their oppressors, and fellow countrymen.  

It was H-hour plus eight.

 The Thai tank commander was close to the end of his rope. He'd been fighting since sunrise. Defend, attack, withdraw to a defensive position then wait for the order to counterattack. His platoon had dwindled down to his sole surviving tank. His company no longer acted as a separate entity. Now his battalion, barely a company in strength, operated as a fire brigade, shoring up his beleaguered battle group.

The last attack, backed by air power, had shattered his unit. He fell back, literally backing into a second story building to avoid the ever-present Alliance attack helicopters. From his vantage point he could see a column of armored vehicles rolling down Highway 11. He was debating which one he would fire on first when he noticed a jeep coming his way. Onboard were three Thai soldiers, rebels.

The jeep rolled right up to his hiding spot. The man in the back dismounted and he walked right up to the tank.

"Can we talk?" the man inquired. The tank commander kept him covered with this machine gun.

"What do you have to say, traitor?" he barked.

"I come to request,"

"We will not surrender," he growled.

"We are not asking you to surrender," the man corrected him. "We are asking you to let the war pass you by."

"Why should I?"

"If you fight, you will be destroyed. The Thai army will need to rebuild when this is over and we must be strong. If you throw your life away, we will all be weaker."

The tank commander had to think that over. If he began firing on that armored column he would be striking a mighty blow for his country. He would also be sentencing him and his men to death.

"There will be no surrender?"

"No sir," the man insisted.

The rebel soldier made some sense. The Thai military would have to rebuild when this catastrophe was over. He and his men had done their part.

"We will stay here for a while," the tank commander informed the rebel.

"Very well," the soldier bowed. He remounted his jeep and drove away.

"We are going to stay here a while," he addressed his crewmen. "Get a bite to eat and a drink of water."

His men hesitated for a moment.

"Now, while we have the chance."

The men hopped to. They had their orders. They would worry about the morality of their actions later.  

It was H-hour plus nine.

 The men in the Royal Thai Army's high command were finally getting ahold of the big picture. The good news was the Third Army's offensive was grinding to a halt along a line stretching along Highway 1 from Tham Pet Tham Tong Forest in the east to Chai Nat on the Chao Praya River in the west. It was accepted as fact that the 3rd Cavalry and 11th Infantry divisions could hold the line.

West of the Chao Praya was a chaotic mess of small garrisons involved in raids and counter-raids. It was deemed unlikely the Alliance forces could push forward any further in that direction either. It also meant that they couldn't pull units from that region to reinforce any of their other trouble points and they had a few.

That was most of the good news.

Another piece of good news was the1st Army's 2nd Infantry Division had stopped the invasion force they were facing only a few kilometers over the frontier in the area of Watthana Nakhon District. As soon as they had gathered the majority of the division together, they would be mounting a counter-offensive with the intention of overwhelming that force and destroying it.

After that, it only got worse.

In the area of the 2nd Army, the 3rd Infantry Division and the 2nd Cavalry Division had virtually ceased to exist as cohesive forces. Two battalions of the 3rd Division were retreating south into the 6th Division's area. The 2nd Cavalry division had been reduced pre-battle to one mechanized regiment. That regiment was gone and with it, the supply routes for the 2nd Royal Thai Army.

Inside that zone, the 6th Infantry Division still existed, but it was in a world of trouble. They had lost control of Highway 24, their primary supply/evacuation route, and were relentlessly being driven out of Ubon Ratchathani. Even with the slowly arriving battalions of the 3rd Division, the 6th could barely muster two combat-effective regiments and those were running short of fuel and ammunition. The 6th had become a static force, too large to be overwhelmed, too immobile to press the enemy out, or save themselves from a slow strangulation. Had they their assigned tank battalion, but they didn't.

The 1st Army's 9th Division was in the worst shape. They had gathered into one elliptical shaped perimeter centered on Chanthaburi and were down to four battalions and two tanks. Technically, they had another battalion, except the 1st Army command had ordered that into Bangkok to aid in suppressing the rebel movement. The 9th Division was surrounded, under attack from the land, sea (the Indian Navy had joined the fight) and air. Their commanding general expected to be wiped out before sunset.

And Bangkok?

It was turning into a typhoon scale disaster. They had finally determined that there were eight small Khanate platoons roaming the city, seemingly at will. The 1st Division had finally located and destroyed one of those, along with a dozen protestors who chose to fight by their side. The others were still at large and causing trouble.

That wasn't the worst of it though. The plan had been to pacify outlying neighborhoods and work their way in to the worst areas. That had started out effectively, then suddenly they had lost the northwestern and southeastern sectors. In the northwest, there were Karin fighters killing, or capturing police and paramilitary strongpoints.

In the southeast, it was much worse. Unknown armored troops from the 9th Division's rear area had come seeping in along the riverfront. They seemed to be everywhere at once, surprising roadblocks and checkpoints then ambushing the forces sent to restore order. They were a cancer pushing into a city already short on reserves.

There were public displays of defiance going out over the international news, surgical air strikes and a growing sense among the rank and file 'Guardians of the Public Order' that they were on the losing side. There were reports of police turning their backs on the unrest, directing traffic and arresting petty criminals instead.

The Royal Thai Army in Bangkok still had over 50,000 men under its command. They were sure they were facing less than a thousand hardcore militants, yet they were losing control of the streets. Part of that was caused by the military being tied down to certain strategic areas they had to hold. They had to protect over a dozen buildings and, as they had painfully learned, a platoon wouldn't do.

The Government House had been temporarily overrun and Parliament had been shelled. Channel 3 had been hijacked and the forces sent to take it back had been subject to intense helicopter attacks and driven back. They'd killed two such craft, but that only seemed to make the Alliance troops angrier. This was what a death by a thousand cuts felt like. This was worse than bad, because it looked bad on media going out all over the world.  

It was H-hour plus twelve.

 The commander of the MARCOS had finally taken the time to eat. He was in the Maleenont Towers section of Khlong Toei, Bangkok. It had been his masterstroke, seizing the Channel 3 station. He wasn't sure who the eight shady characters who showed up with the VIPs were and he didn't really care. What did matter was while the VIP's fought like wildcats in private they were putting on a unified front while on TV.

One of the VIPs was the former civilian Prime Minister of Thailand. The other guys seemed to hate her guts, but were willing to work with her to overthrow the generals. What he did care about was the nearly five hundred men under his command plus a dozen helicopters and jets somewhere above, waiting to swoop in and help when the next government attack materialized.

He had to give them this much, the police forces had guts, not a lot of brains, but plenty of guts. Their counter-terrorism unit had known their stuff, but they didn't have any effective anti-tank weapons and he had a half dozen tanks. Whenever the army got feisty, he called up 'Shiva's Fist' ~ his men's joking reference to the Khanate air support. Those bastards not only killed you, they came back around and killed your corpse too.

He got a call from the perimeter. Some of those Karin fighters had crossed half the city to join them. The Indian officer had thought that part of the Khanate plan was utter madness, yet here they were, shooting up the place in a manner only highly experienced insurgents could. Those guys didn't even want to hang around. They were asking for more ammo. The locals were giving them all the food and water they needed.

At nine, once it was truly dark, the Khanate was promising to drop off a few tons of whatever they need plus some more medivac units. He was down nine men dead and twenty-seven wounded badly enough they need to be removed. The Khanate had lost four times as many. All in all, the overthrow of a military regime was turning out to not be as difficult as he thought it would be. He was waiting to be surprised.  

It was H-hour plus fifteen.

 The fighting had died down and now the main activity was the Thai civic authorities fighting the fires burning in Saraburi. The Khanate Commander of 1000 looked over his shoulder at the burning city. It hadn't been much of a fight, mainly a few rear echelon forces from the Royal Thai 2nd Army and some paramilitaries.

He wasn't in the town. The majority of his troopers had already rolled down to the junction of Highways 1 and 33. He had communication with other elements farther west on Highway 32 at Ang Thong and to the northwest at the junction of Highways 1 and 32. The offensive operations was essentially over for his command. That was just as well. He was running low on petrol. He still had plenty of ammunition though.

They were sitting on the lifeline for the 1st Army's 3rd Cavalry and 11th Division to the north and the 2nd Division to the east. The 6th Division was too far in his rear to matter and the 9th Division was facing annihilation along the coast. It was very dark now, but the air force was still active. Some pilots were flying their sixteenth mission of the day.

For most of the day, the Khanate Air Force had concentrated on his axis of advance and the battle in Bangkok. The Vietnamese Air Force had concentrated on the hapless 9th Division. In reality, the Alliance was almost at the end of its tether.

His combined Laos and Far North Task Forces were spent. The North and Cambodian Task Forces had the 6th Division pinned down. The South Task Force had done the same with the 9th. Only the Central Task Force facing the 2nd Division appeared to be in serious trouble.

None of those formations were actually near defeat, though many of them wouldn't realize that until morning. Only the 3rd Army's two task force had consisted of more than 5,000 hastily gathered troops and most of those were Cambodians, Laotians and Vietnamese. To that the Khanate had added 50 mobile Zuuns spread over ten task forces and another 50 airmobile, parachute and airlifted units ~ less than ten thousand men and women spread over all fronts.

The cold, hard reality for him was that not a single loyalist Thai unit had been destroyed. The 3rd and 9th infantry divisions has been battered, that was true. The majority of their mobile forces, the 2nd and 3rd cavalry divisions, still existed as a potent force. The 11th and 2nd infantry divisions were also out there, but they were all cut off from the capital. And in this elegant global play, the one theater that mattered was Bangkok.

In the morning, if they came for him, the loyalist Thai's were going to discover that offense was a lot more painful that defense. Only the 2nd Division bothered him. The forces to the north were too heavily engaged with the rebel Thai 3rd Army to dispatch more than a battalion his way and he would gobble up a battalion.

It would be too much to ask the battered Alliance Center Task Force to keep the 2nd Division occupied. From what he had heard, they were on the verge of disintegration after a powerful Loyalist counterattack. He did have patrols on the 304 and 359 Roads in case their commander got creative. What those few men lacked in vehicles, they would compensate for with air power.

The Khanate Air Force was a 24/7, all-weather operation. They had lost 40 aircraft to enemy action and a further forty to mechanical malfunction. Losses in helicopters was also high. But there were still enough of both to get the job done. Now all he had to do was wait for the Americans to arrive.  

It was H-hour plus seventeen.

There were only three major acts left in this macabre play before the eyes of the world.

 A squadron of 12 Tu-22M bombers found two of the 2nd Division's regiments sneaking to the west. The Thais had done this with as much secrecy as they could. Unfortunately, their move was one of only two option left to the Loyalist Royal Thai Army.

Option One, the most likely one, had the 2nd Division attacking the Khanate troops south of Saraburi. It would not only give the 2nd Division freedom of movement, it would establish supply lines to the divisions currently holding the rebel Thai Third Army at bay. It was the predictable choice.

The Khanate U A V were out there, scouting for them and when they spotted the three columns using the backroads to approach their attack positions, they relayed that information to a not-so-distant A-50E/I. The squadron of waiting bombers had incredible endurance and had been circling the suspected target area for three hours. They broke up into groups of six then into groups of two. The first two lined up on their targets then unleashed their lethal cargo.

Each plane dropped sixty-nine 250 kg bombs. That was138 bombs with a combined explosive power of 75,900 lbs. spread out over three-quarters of a mile. The A-50 assessed the damage for 7 minutes before sending the second set of two in. Another 138 bombs. Another 75,900 lbs. of death. The third group wouldn't be needed. In ten minutes the fighting power of the 2nd Royal Thai Infantry Division had evaporated.

Option Two? That called for the 1st Infantry Division, with her added units, to sally forth from Bangkok and rescue the trapped elements of their other divisions. That would have entailed abandoning large areas of the capital to the protestors and the tiny groups of invaders that were helping them. No one thought they would do that and they were right. Had they been wrong, there was another squadron of bombers waiting for them.  

It was H-hour plus nineteen.

 The Thai Phon Thahan-turned-Sip Tho looked out into the darkness. Four hours ago he was anticipating crossing the Cambodian border and burning down their town for a change. Now, now it was wait-and-see. The majority of the division had withdrawn for a long night march to the west. From what he had gathered, the 2nd Army had been pummeled and it was once again the time for the 2nd Division to save the day.

He spotted movement in front of him. He glanced over to his 'sniper', a Thahan Phran who was the best shot in his unit and had a taste for the task. The man had the target in his sights.

"I come to parlay," the voice in the darkness shouted in less than perfect Thai. The Thai soldier had to think what that meant. His instinct was to shoot the man. His training taught him to not make choices above his pay grade.

"Advance. Don't do anything stupid," he called out. To the man next to him he whispered, "Go get the Captain." The man slunk away. No one alive in the unit stood up to do anything. You even pissed crouched down. The man coming toward him was a Cambodian. It was evident in both his gear and accent. "What do you want?"

"We want a truce," the man replied. He remained very erect, his hands in the air and only made slow, careful movements.

"I should shoot you," he growled.

"That would be unfortunate for both of us. I would, of course, be dead, and my allies would open up with our artillery."

The conversation was truncated by the captain's arrival. They went through much of the same routine, absent the 'I should kill you part' and the counter-threat. The captain turned to the Thai soldier.

"Blindfold and bind this man's hands then take him to the Phan Ek (Colonel). Let him figure this out."

Without the soldier saying anything the Captain added, "This could be a ruse. I must stay here. Hurry."

He nodded, took a shirt from one of the civilian volunteers, cut it into strips then blindfolded and bound the man.

"If you so much as sneeze, I'll put a bullet in your head," he warned the man.

"I understand," the Cambodian replied. The soldier took the Cambodian one block behind the lines, spun the man around several times, then led him toward the command bunker. He spun him around twice more before making his final approach. A wounded junior officer met him at the entrance.

"Come on," he took custody of the man. Having nothing else to do and not having been ordered to release the prisoner, the soldier followed along.

The Regimental Commander had the man un-blindfolded. His hands remained bound.

"What do your masters want?" the Major snapped.

"They want a truce," the Cambodian blinked in the sudden bright light.

"You invaded us without a declaration of war. That makes you criminals, not combatants."

"We attacked at the request of the legitimate authority in Thailand, the Commanding General of the Royal Thai Third Army."

"Those men are rebels and you will not refer to them as anything but," the Phan Ek insisted.

"Very well. My Commander wishes to let you know that our mobile hospital has arrived. We wish to exchange prisoners and place our facilities at your disposal as well."

"The Royal Thai army will be there soon enough," the Major glowered.

"Unlikely. Our Khanate allies have informed us that most of your division was destroyed on the road. You have one battered regiment and a handful of tanks. You are not going anywhere."

The soldier wanted to slap the smug smile off the man's face.

"I do not have the authority to hand over prisoners until their status as POWs or criminals has been established," the senior officer countered.

"If you consider our men criminals, we will treat your men like traitors."

"Are you threatening me?"

"Yes. A fact you should be aware of is that the Khanate has been flying in reinforcements since noon and we have five more armored, mechanized and artillery Zuuns to attack with. Come sunrise, we will be coming at you again unless we have a truce."

"Now you are threatening us again," the Phan Ek pointed out.

"I am explaining the realities of your situation, nothing more," the Cambodian countered. "Our task force commander believes that further violence will be futile. You have done your job and we have done ours."

"And your job was to keep us occupied so you could rape and pillage other parts of our country?"

"No sir. The Alliance forces have been operating under very strict guidelines. The Thai people are our allies and we are a liberating force," the Cambodian replied.

"You consider this town 'liberated'? You've destroyed it," the Phan Ek noted.

"It was unfortunate that you chose to fight us here."

The Colonel studied the man silently for thirty seconds.

"I will agree to a two hour truce. That should allow me to contact my superiors for further clarification on my mission. We will hand over any critically injured 'invaders'. You will return any POW's you are holding in exchange."

"Agreed," the Cambodian immediately responded.

"Just like that? It is really within your authority to make such a deal?"

"As I said earlier Phan Ek, we believe the fighting is over. We don't need your captured men. We would like to see as many as our comrades live as possible. No matter what your commanders say, the fact remains that if you come out of these ruins, you will be slaughtered. You know that. I know that. Peace is the only avenue that leads to any level of success. Today, today, both our forces did what our commanders told us to do. The dying should stop."

"Go. The truce will take effect in, fifteen minutes ~ 12:12 am. We will transfer prisoners and wounded at your point of entry. We will both give a warning whistle fifteen, ten, five and one minute before the truce ends at 2:12 am. Do you understand?"

The Cambodian repeated the terms of the truce. He was bound up then sent back with the Sip Tho.

"Do you really think this is the end of the fighting," he asked his blind captive.

"On the lives of my children I hope so," the man sighed. "I led 88 men into battle this morning and now I'm down to 46 effectives. I have lost too many already for a battle that wasn't in my nation's best interest. I am tired of the killing."

"Me too," the Thai said a moment later. After he delivered him to the Captain on the front lines, the man was unbound.

"Good luck," he found himself saying.

"Good luck for both of us," the Cambodian gave a weary smile. "May we not meet again."

"If I see you again, I will kill you."

"I feel the same way," the man chuckled. "We are both soldiers doing what more powerful men have commanded us to do. I don't know about you, but I have had enough." Several Thai soldiers nodded. They had driven the enemy off Thai soil. Continuing the fight didn't seem to have much of a point.  

It was H-hour plus twenty.

  News anchors, expert commentators and historians would hotly debate exactly what the officers of the 31st regiment (Royal Thai Guards) and the Royal Cadet Guard-Naval Academy meant to do when they gathered their units at the Chitralada Royal Villa. King of Thailand, Bhumibol Adulyadej aka Rama IX, was in residence, as was Crown Prince Maha Vajiralongkorn.

Until he granted their commanding officers an audience at 10 pm, the King had been largely unaware of the greater turmoil in his country. Yes, he knew about the Third Army's rebellion as well as the Navy, Air Force and 4th Army staying neutral. He had been hearing noises of combat coming from all corners of his capital. What he didn't fully understand was the beating his military was taking in the field, or the perceived precarious situation the Army faced in Bangkok.

One possible interpretation of what happened was these officers, aware that there was fighting getting closer to the Royal Residence, went to safeguard his Majesty with no ulterior motive. That viewpoint suggested the Crown Prince took the initiative to end the suffering of his nation and decided to make a public announcement from the Grand Palace (the public royal residence), appealing for the cessation of hostilities, for both sides to separate until a council could convene in the morning to resolve the situation peaceably.

Another possible view was the Admiral and Colonel came pleading for the King to do something to end the chaos and the King followed the men's advice. He convinced the Crown Prince to go to the Grand Palace and end the conflict.

A third possibility was this was a counter-coup, led by the Royal Guards and the Navy Cadets who 'convinced' the King and Crown Prince that they had to exercise the threat of l se-majest  in order to end the fighting since both forces contained Thai soldiers fighting one another and was thus, action against the King's will and an insult to his status as Father of the Thai People.

What did happen? The King was quite old (86), so it fell to the Crown Prince (62) to take an active role in the matter in his father's name. In a manner that was never clarified, he was able to communicate with the Great Khan, who personally pledged a withdrawal of his forces if that is what his 'brother' in the Chakri Dynasty desired.

The Great Khan then contacted the governments of Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam, requesting they also halt their forces and take up a purely defensive stance (i.e. they had done their part so he would now pay them for their troubles ~ mainly in the form of updated military hardware).

The Crown Prince then contacted the Commander of the Royal Third Army and commanded/suggested that a civil war was not in the nation's best interest. He was then escorted to the Grand Palace where he made a public announcement over every major media network that he had elicited a cease-fire with the rebels and their allies.

First off, he promised the Thai people that they were giving up nothing in this arrangement. The Civil War would end, because he said so and if the loyalist Royal Thai forces who claimed to be serving him (through his father) were truly doing so, they would also immediately cease hostilities. He requested all concerned parties meet at the Great Palace in the morning at nine to work out the particulars of the end of the current civil disorder. Both civilian and military representatives would be present.

Furthermore, he directed the Royal Thai Marine regiments to move into Bangkok and separate the warring forces, thus ensuring the cease-fire. He was also accepting the offer from the President of the United States to deploy a US Marine Amphibious Unit to the countryside to separate the combatants there. The Alliance High Command had already guaranteed they would hold open the captured air bases to facilitate that move.

Once disengagement had been achieved, he had a personal guarantee from the Great Khan, monarch to monarch, that the Great Khan and the other allied governments would withdraw to their respective borders within a week, if not sooner. The country would unite. The country would rebuild. Together, all factions of Thai society would create a stable future.  

It was H-hour plus twenty-five. Effectively, the war was over, although small skirmishes would continue until sunrise.

Had the Crown Prince the authority to do any of that? No. He had ministers appointed by the Parliament that took care of things like foreign and civil affairs. He was titular head of the armed forces, but had no actual authority to command. What he did have was a deep well-spring of respect among his people including many leaders in the military. He was throwing down a gauntlet that very easily could be trampled into the mud.

In his favor, not a single faction wanted to be the one to do that. The military had its sworn oaths to consider. Those oaths bound the generals together and bound their underlings to them. They couldn't very well declare they were serving the will of the King any longer if they defied the Crown Prince now.

For the civilian leaders, this was their best avenue to return to power. They were saved the ugly perception that they were relying on foreign intervention to achieve their aims. The outsiders were going away. The Crown Prince had, somehow, gotten them to back off solely with the weight of his personality. He had achieved the military victory the Army had failed to deliver and he hadn't killed a single person doing it.

For the protesters in the street? They were high on the use of force (by the allies) to repress the use of force (by the Army). The protesting population now controlled large sections of Bangkok and had garnered a great deal of police neutrality/cooperation in the process. Besides, while they had been comrades in the streets facing down the military junta, they were still divided in their political views.

What would be the outcome? That was what street protests were all about. Both sides had their 'favored son/daughter' they followed, political parties they adhered to and grievances they wanted addressed. Civilian governments had collapsed under their own weight of accusations and charges of corruption before and they probably would again. That part of Thai politics remained untouched by the recent national tragedy.

What had been accomplished? The next time the Commander of the Armed Forces thought about taking power, he would have to to examine the precedent established by the Khanate:

... now the various civilian factions could appeal for foreign intervention to protect their civil liberties.

Also, a civilian authority was the most likely outcome of the upcoming National Reconciliation Government and they would owe that freedom to the Khanate and would, to a degree, view the Great Khan as the guarantee that the military wouldn't put tanks on the streets anytime soon.

The Khanate? She got what she wanted, a stable, friendly southern flank.

The Alliance's Southeast Asian members? Those three allies would be getting several shipments of 'nearly' modern hardware with additional aid to help then maintain said technology in working order.

India? A stable, friendly government would ally with India (not China) to build their canal thru the Kra Isthmus. The creation of the India-Thailand Kra Infrastructure Investment and Development Company (ITKIIDC) was already moving through the Indian parliament. The expected income from tolls alone was expected to accede $400 million a year (though that alone would take 70 years to pay off the predicted $28 billion price tag, Hoo-raah Big Government).

Thailand? A brief brutal civil war that could have been a whole lot worse ~ unless you had actually been in one of the war zones. Maybe they would get a democratic government. Their economy hadn't taken that much of a beating, and there would be plenty of reconstruction jobs. The IMF would probably pump in a few million into the economy to 'help out'. It had been bad; it could have been worse.

The Philippines? Why were we involved with that again? It was back to the bargaining table with the Khanate, India and Vietnam once more. Nothing much had changed.

The Republic of China? The Khanate still loved them. An invasion of the mainland was still in the works. It was back to working on the South Korean, Japanese, ROC, Vietnam, India and Khanate alliance network dedicated to containing the PRC because the Red Dragon was far from finished.

Malaysia? Not much had changed. Some Malaysian Marines were on their way to Thailand as part of a humanitarian mission, so it wasn't like Thailand hated them. The Khanate tide had receded far short of the border. The US had edged a tad closer and had become a little bit more engaged in the South China Sea. All in all, it could have been much worse. The Khanate could have been sitting on their border, much worse.

The United States? The President of the United States was The Peacemaker. His tiny military presence was up to the task of acting like crossing guards as they escorted the 'Alliance' back across their respective frontiers.

Not only was this his chance to say 'See, I did something',, without him having to do anything until after the fact since the Crown Prince and the Great Khan had created the cease-fire.

As well as 'See, I can do this Nation-Building thing without spending several trillion dollars',, Without doing any actual nation-building since the Thai's would be doing that themselves.

And 'See, the greatest military power in Asia respects us enough to back off when we arrive',, while not having to talk to the Khanate in any official capacity, because, you know, the Great Khan was still The Bad Guy, revisit the bio-terrorism, genoicide and War of Aggression then subtract one Free Tibet, and now one Democratic Thailand.

For the daring men and women of the US Military there was an 'Atta boy/girl/team, I knew you could do this, thanks for risking your lives' and an 'Oh, by the way, I'm cutting the Defense budget again next year. Have fun being RIFed. I'm sure you will find a job in the private sector, no problem'.

One horrifying/awe-inspiring thing had been revealed during the 'Thai Expedition'. That was the Khanate's airlift capabilities. It rivaled that of the US and dwarfed every other nation's in comparison. The 'why' of the matter made total sense in hindsight.

The Khanate knew it would control a massive expanse of space, yet she was saddled with a weak all-weather road network and an inadequate railway system. Furthermore, the resource-rich East was separated by the Caspian Sea from the industrialized West. She had to be prepared to move massive numbers of troops over incredible distances and airlift was the only possible answer.

In a total of seventy-two hours (counting the troops brought in while the campaign was going on) they had brought in nearly 15,000 soldiers, enough hardware to equip a mechanized Tumen plus the logistical support for those warriors and over 500 aircraft. It had been an awesome endeavor and something new for the Pentagon war-planners to factor in the next time they needed to fight/ally with the Great Khan.

Meanwhile: been RIFed?

The Khanate desperately needed you if you had (any) engineering, infrastructure, judicial, law enforcement, logistics, medical, and/or military expertise, and they payed you well for something you would have been doing in the US/UK military, had either of those institutions still employed you. And working for The Khanate was okay because they had (barely) avoided being a US enemy by dint of a back-room meeting that never officially happened.

Note: End explanation of how things played out in the Battle for Thailand.

{9:00 pm, Tuesday, September 2nd ~ 6 Days to go}

"I suggest we all get some sleep," Addison declared as she stood up and stretched. Odette was asleep on the floor, her head propped up by a pillow. The rest of us look like we'd, been up for the past three days with only cat-naps breaking up the tedium between reports from various sources, namely the NRO (National Reconnaissance Office), Khanate and the Black Lotus.

By the time the major news outlets brought up the 'current events' we had already digested it and moved on to the next crisis point. As they had learned, 'Live from the Front Lines' sounded nice, but it wasn't all that informative. Like most sane individuals, reporters and cameramen ducked when people were shooting at them, so you got plenty of good footage of what the dirt/walls/pavement in Thailand looked like.

Around eight o'clock yesterday morning, Bangkok time, an 'expert' commentator brought up the point that the news crews on the 'Alliance's' side of the story were in Thailand illegally, thus prone to get shot at.

"But they are the Press," a cute news anchor babbled. "Isn't that a war crime, or something?"

All I could think of was that with those smarts and those lips, she had to give tremendous head. Don't get me wrong, she was clearly college-educated, but she was also lost in some alternate reality bubble where bullets instinctively knew who not to kill.

"They are imbedded with an invading army," the female expert sighed. "I don't think the average Thai soldier can tell the difference between a civilian cameraman aiming his way and, say, a Khanate soldier with a rocket launcher. I imagine that looking down the barrel, they appear to be the same thing."

"But they have 'Press' on their helmets and arm badges," she refused to relent to the other woman's common sense. The female commentator was getting pissed, so she got snide.

"I know. I have seen them. We all have. Unfortunately, while I have seen plenty of them in English, Hindi, Spanish, German, Russian and French, I have yet to see one in Thai, which would make it rather hard for the average Thai infantryman to understand what those symbols mean."

"Oh," the talking head muttered. "Why didn't the Khanate do something about this? Aren't they responsible for their safety?"

"Well," the commentator rolled her eyes, "I doubt the Khanate conscripted those journalist and short of them living in a hole for the past week, they had to know to what country they were going to. This level of stupidity is all yours."

"Ah, okay. Why don't we go back to Marcel? Marcel, how are you doing?"

"It is horrible," the terrified man screamed. "People are killing people everywhere and the two Khanate guards attached to me don't seem to understand English so they won't take us back to the rear area."

"Where did you get this guy?" the expert's brow furrowed. "Doesn't he know that in this kind of action, there are no rear areas." Pause for the sound of rifle fire. "Wait! Wait! Here is an officer. Captain, Colonel, Major," he stammered, "Can you tell us what is going on?"

"It is Ni Z  n komandlagch," the officer corrected him in Oxford English. He and three of his troopers were standing up, looking around and occasionally getting some information from his men through his headset. "Why are you hiding here?"

"They are shooting at us," the field reporter wailed.

"No. We are shooting at them. They can't hit us here. You are in minimal danger," he assured the reporter.

"What is going on?"

"We are quelling the last of the resistance in the town of Rayong as per our orders."

"Have there been many civilian casualties?"

"Yes."

"How many?"

"I don't think anyone will be counting them until tomorrow morning at the earliest. Since we are currently in the middle of an invasion, we don't have the time, or resources. Do you want to interview some prisoners? We have some close by."

"That, that would be nice," the reporter gulped.

"I wonder if any of those prisoners speak English," the expert mumbled. They never got the chance to find out because thirty seconds later the Zuun Commander began issuing orders. He was reconnecting his men with their IFVs and was getting ready to head somewhere with a purpose.

"Where are you going?" the reporter bleated.

"Exactly? I don't know. My orders are to head west," the officer shrugged. "I fully expect to get more precise information on the road."

"You don't know?" the man paled.

"I'm not in charge, this is mobile warfare, and we've already accomplished the second phase of our mission," he explained as he mounted his own BMP-3. "Now one of our scouts has run into trouble and we are going to make a reconnaissance in force."

"Does anyone think that bozo has any idea what reconnaissance in force means?" Odette had interjected.

"I don't think your man knows what is going on," the expert parroted. "Can't he at least ask what the first two phases of the mission were?"

"Unlikely," Chaz commented, darkly amused. "Odette, I think your money is safe."

Chaz had been watching this newsman with some interest since he came on line two hours ago. He didn't care a damn about the man and his lack of courage. No, his eyes and ears were glued to the masked men who seemed to be working as 'advisors' to the Khanate forces.

Chaz had never seen the MARCOS in action. Few people had and here he was with a live action viewpoint. Had the reporter been less of a coward, he might had learned more. As it was, Chaz figured out that the Indian Special Forces were calling the shots while the Khanate provided the firepower.

It was a level of cooperation that was chilling to watch. The Khanate warriors didn't resent the orders the Indian's gave in the least. That level of trust was telling for future operations between India and the Khanate.

"What about us?" the reporter asked.

"Jump on if you like. We have orders to accommodate you," the Kazak offered.

"But where are we going?"

"To find more Thai soldiers to disarm, of course. We won't be purchasing any curios until later this afternoon," the officer grinned.

"Won't they be shooting at us?"

"That is the nature of war, guns being fired, air strikes, land mines, snipers. Don't let me discourage you though."

"Ah," the reporter stammered.

"Bleep this Bleep. I'm coming along," the cameraman declared. The man sprinted around the vehicle and ran up the back ramp, filming all the way. Soon enough the door would close and, the reporter, nothing more was heard of him, for some time.

"Worked for Sky News," Agent 86 yawned.

The Sky News face man had had a spectacular on-scene death, shot through the head by a sniper. His cameraman was carrying on without him quite well. Whatever awards cameramen got for exceptional videography, that man deserved them all. He snuck around with Khanate soldiers as they engaged in fire-fights, had dragged a wounded trooper to cover, while still filming, and returned to the fight.

Next, Next the leader of the Special Forces team issued his commands, in English while the Khanate troops hurried to obey. In three minutes, the unit had abandoned the ruins of Rayong and was headed toward the tourist mecca of Chon Buri. The JIKIT members looked at the video map. Chon Buri was due south of Bangkok and if the tiny task group could advance that far, maybe they could cause some major trouble in the city, as long as you took into account that they had roughly 100 Elite Special Forces, 450 men in armored vehicles and six tanks.

That revelation had brought about Operation Walnut ~ the Black Lotus C I A rescue of key political prisoners and linking them up with this new, highly lethal detachment. At worst, they could be exited from the city thus free to take to the airwaves and internet with their calls for further social action. Instead of letting the Black Lotus (the C I A had to make themselves scarce) come to him, the MOROS leader decided to go seize a TV station downtown and meet the politicians there.

In anything approaching a normal combat operation, things like this wouldn't have happened, or so Captain Delilah Faircloth, R A F, informed us. This invasion was far from normal. On the CNN and BBC maps, Loyalist Thailand was in blue, the Neutral faction was in green and the Rebel Alliance (at least the Loyalist weren't being called the Empire) was in red.

For the past four hours the red sections of the map had been growing at the expense of the blue. Worse, from this computer generated point of view, there were a dozen tiny red pin pricks all over the place inside the Blue Zone. Those dots were growing like a cancer, mainly because the reporters were telling their media outlets where the Khanate forces were, without explaining that they areas they had left were effectively back under Loyalist control.

It looked bad, really bad, as long as everybody ignored the fact that there wasn't that much territory a hundred men could hold down. The problem was the Thai authorities didn't have imbedded reporters, so they couldn't tell their side of this battle. Because of that, it appeared to be a lopsided conflict.

At ten-thirty, the level of the bizarre got deeper for the Loyalist. According to one of the imbedded BBC teams, a combined forces Mechanized Tumen had penetrated Bangkok proper and was pushing into the city from the west. He even showed various Vietnamese, Khanate and Karin fighters standing around some impressive looking vehicles.

The only problem was the proportionality of number meant that column of the invasion army was much more a Light Infantry Regimental Combat Team (RCT), not a Tumen of any kind. According to Mehmet, a RCT was approximately two thousand men, depending on the mission. A Tumen was roughly ten thousand men, so the Thai HQ, which by now was certainly watching the BBC for their own 'Latest from the Front Line' updates, totally misunderstood the nature of the threat.

This danger was further magnified by the fact that the TOE (Table of Organization and Equipment) of a Mechanized Tumen included five Zuuns (500 men) with 33 tanks each, 165 Very Modern Main Battle Tanks, plus 25 Zuuns with a total of another 600 armored vehicles. That formation didn't have 10,000 men, had no tanks and no armor of any kind. All they had were a few jeeps and a lot of hutzpah.

The tactic you used for fighting an armored incursion was totally different than what you would use to fight a guerrilla infiltration. Against tanks, you set yourself up in a built-up area so you could ambush the vehicles from the side, or from above. By the time the guerrillas penetrated that far into the city, they had already dispersed so much that they were virtually impossible to block.

To add to the Loyalist catastrophe, the military units rushed toward this threat mistook the few Karin they did see to be spotters for the Khanate mobile artillery and air support, so they hunkered down and let the Karin pass through their positions to be mopped up by rear area troops.

That decision was based on the perception that the Karin would be acting as a unified force. Instead, the Karin fanned out over the city in small eight to ten men teams and wreaked havoc with no particular aim except to make a huge racket. Go after hard (heavily guarded/important) targets? Oh Hell no! Shoot up a patrol, or police station, sure. Just remember to run away before they could start shooting back.

The BBC continued to help out. The broadcaster gave ten minute updates on how much farther he and his little band of miscreants had penetrated into the city, how close they were to the financial district and how morning shoppers were somewhat surprised by the sudden outburst of violence in their hometown. The BBC interviewed the 'Thai on the street' and enlightened them that their city was about to fall to Alliance forces.

There were four general reactions to this information. Some panicked and ran home. Others headed straight for the closest grocery store/marketplace and began buying necessities and the third group pulled out their phones and recorded this monumental event for posterity, some even tagging along. After all, how often did you have a front row seat to an invasion?

The fourth group caused the most damage, unintentionally. They ran to the closest bank, or ATM, and began drawing out as much money as they could. That news spread like wildfire. Before long, the Chairman of the Krung Thai Bank, Dr. Somchai Sujjapongse, called the Minister of Finance, Apisak Tantivorawong, and informed him that there was a run on the banks.

The Minister of Finance called the Prime Minister for instructions, but that worthy was a bit too busy to deal with any bureaucrat at the moment. Left to his own devices, Apisak Tantivorawong closed all the banks in the Greater Bangkok Metropolitan Area and asked the Chief of Police to put officers on all the ATMs until they could be shut down.

The harried Police Chief promised that he would do what he could with the forces he had at his disposal, which was not a lot. His decision made great strategic sense, guard the ATMs in the wealthy and middle class areas where a lone officer was far less likely to be overwhelmed by protestors/enemy armed forces.

When the Black Lotus agent in the police force got wind those orders, he immediately relayed them to his superiors. It was Manna from Heaven. Those leaders quickly got in touch with their Karin/Khanate co-belligerents and provided them with maps (courtesy of Mapquest and a printer) of the locations of all the closest bank branches and ATMs, guarded by lone officers, or not at all. If they moved fast enough, they could catch the bank employees before they left work.

Before long, the banks were back in business. The Alliance insurgents sat back and let the panic-withdrawals ensue. There simply weren't enough police left to respond to every bank 'reopening'. The Karin dutifully allowing the Thai people to resume their legal pillaging of the Thai financial system went viral. Before long, everybody was flocking to the banks and marketplaces. After all, hadn't they just heard on the BBC that the city was about to fall to the Rebels?

Welcome to the unverified news era, where a person could babble anything and be believed, no matter now preposterous their assertion was. It made no logical sense that the Loyalist could lose control of the capital, but logic had flown right out the window, to be replaced by a frantic effort to report anything that might be newsworthy and the desire to believe the worst was happening.

Back in New York, Lady Yum-Yum clapped her hands in glee. She felt she had to explain the implications of this to me. Until that moment, the vibrant Thai middle class had largely been unenthusiastic supporters of the current regime. Now the banks were closing and those people, denied their money in this time of crisis, got both scared and angry. It was their damn money.

Hysteria took over. Would there be enough food in their cupboards to carry them through the unrest? If there wasn't, how were they going to pay for what they needed? Prices were going to be skyrocketing. Would the power be disrupted? That would mean the refrigerators would die and the food spoil. The water? Sanitation? An unfounded sense of dread gripped those people, and they suddenly began believing their government had let them down.

Those normally sedate, polite people began flooding the streets to inadvertently make the police's and army's job a far more colossal undertaking. 'No, they wouldn't go back home until the current unfortunateness passed.' They had families to feed and, if the government had everything under control, why were the banks closed?

The security apparatus was in an impossible situation. They couldn't shoot everybody ~ there was no way their troops would go for that. They couldn't arrest people who only wanted to get enough money to feed their families. And, besides, why was the government shutting down the banks? How bad was it really? Were they on the wrong side of this civil war? That nagging fear crept into the minds of the junior officers on the streets.

The BBC team wasn't alone in spreading disinformation and panic either. Several news agencies had reporters in hotels all around Bangkok ~ their version of 'in the field' reporting included three hot meals a day, a massage and a few non-life-endangering attempts at investigative journalism. By eleven o'clock in the morning, there was a whirlwind of destruction from all over the place (if you believed the internet).

One ABC reporter stood on his eleventh story balcony and gave a blow by blow accounting of what he perceived to be going on. (It would have been better, if his cameraman hadn't been hiding in corner with a mattress over himself.) The reporter gave to the world a very wobbly perspective of events.

Tens of thousands of protestors were in the streets (insert stock protestor footage). Khanate tanks had been spotted all over the place (which were in fact Thai T-84 Oplots) (insert a collage of Khanate war footage and the current situation map). Airstrikes were going on everywhere (insert stock footage of a variety of air strikes along with the occasional actual Khanate strike in Bangkok).

The two-woman team from Compl ment d'enqu te were far more adventurous. Not only was the journalist hot, her camerawoman was a babe too. Virginia suggested they might be lesbians. I knew they weren't and I had a sudden idea that maybe I could abuse my current popularity to give a 'behind the scenes' interview with both of them. In Paris, I wouldn't put Hana through that here in the States.

Anyway, by eleven-thirty, they had reported on a street protest broken up by police using tear gas and 'less-lethal' rounds. They had avoided being arrested there, but been rounded up four blocks over. A few minutes after that, they were liberated by a different Thai mob and a few Khanate soldiers. Sadly, another reporter had already staked a claim to those souls, so the two women went off looking for another story.

They found themselves in the midst of the protestors taking over the Government House, then the military counter-offensive. This time people were getting mangled, killed and wounded. A few seconds later death came a-calling for the military. They had been advancing up a wide open boulevard. Two Khanate planes (Su-24s) found them and visited some hate on those Loyalists suceuses (her descriptor).

Ten minutes later, the viewing populace found the duo flagging down a cab and speeding through the chaotic streets, running down a lead that the last democratically elected Prime Minister of Thailand, Yingluck Shinawatra (who was even pretty hot for a lady heading toward fifty), had been rescued/executed. Those two looked as if they were having the time of their lives.

At that point in the struggle there were roughly 2,000 Alliance troops in the city. The Loyalist had over 50,000, outnumbering the rebels by 25:1, and they were still losing the international popularity contest. Banks running out of money, marketplace stripped of foodstuffs, dozens of Karin lounging around, or helping out the general Thai populace.

When asked why, the local Karin commander smiled and, in broken Thai, stated,

"Why fight anymore? The Khanate is already rounding up the band of rascals who have ruined this country. We have already won."

Some of those 'rascals' looked out their windows to be sure what that Karin was saying on national television wasn't the truth.

The reasonable reaction for those 'important people' was to call the local airbase to have a plane prepped for a quick departure and then begin to electronically transfer money in their bank accounts to financial institutions in Malaysia. For those adjutants, who were standing around as this was going on, came the stark realization that they didn't have an exit plan. Someone was going to have to pay for this fiasco, and the real bandits were getting the Hell out of Dodge. Not good.

Somewhere around noon, those men began calling the officers in the thick of the action and warned them that there might be repercussions for shooting unarmed civilians. What did that mean? The adjutant couldn't say, but the implication was clear, Human Rights was about to become an issue for the men ordering the rank and file to suppress this insurgency. These officers didn't have an exit plan either.

Mind you, not a single officer left his post. None of them fled the country. They grimly hung on because around two in the afternoon they were starting to get a clearer sense of what was going on and realized they should be able to win this. The enemy wasn't in strength anywhere and before long, attrition would start being a factor and the Royal Thai Army could win that fight.

 To be continued.

By FinalStand for Literotica.