The UNIT records covering Major Barry's team quickly fell victim to the military love of silence and shadows.  According to unclassified files of other missions at UNIT-SEA's Singapore headquarters, a standard team in the field would consist of eight or ten people.  Most of them would carry Heckler-Koch MP-5s, and at least one would be armed with a sniper rifle.  All would wear lightweight body armour and carry a Beretta 92F automatic pistol as a back-up.  The team would also be equipped with a GPS system for navigation, a scrambled satellite communications unit and at least one laptop computer.

There were undoubtedly variations between individual teams, but what those differences might be is something that can only be imagined, at least by anyone not of the right security-clearance level to find out.

Though he would never say any such thing out loud, Barry was quite relieved to find Gibson and Harris waiting, in good health, at the rendezvous point.  From there on, the team made good progress northwards, but were careful not to go quite as far as the route that the backpackers Gibson and Harris had been following.  Instead, they turned east, towards the Vietnamese border.

Eventually, on a forested slope, Tranh held up a hand to halt them.  To everyone's surprise, a road cut across the jungle ahead.  It was just a scar of mud winding round the hill, but Tranh looked troubled to see it.  'What's up?' Barry asked.

Tranh made a shushing gesture, and led the team along the roadside and up a small ridge.  There was plenty of activity in the clearing below.  A large swathe of jungle had been bulldozed to make room for covered cutting-benches and a couple of Portakabins.  The few trucks were rusting relics of the Vietnam war, but the Kalashnikovs carried by the guards all seemed to be In good condition.  'Loggers.'

'Loggers?'  Barry didn't see what was wrong with that.

'Illegals,' Tranh explained.  'Khmer Rouge sympathisers, and they don't like visitors.'

Clark frowned.  'I thought this area was free from Khmer activity.  There shouldn't be any north of Kratie.'

'These are simply criminals.  They carry out illegal logging to raise money for the Khmer Rouge.  We should go round, and try to avoid them.'

'Absolutely.'  Barry hesitated.  Something light green had caught his eye and he dodged instinctively.  Clark's machete took the hanuman snake in mid-strike, cutting it in half.  Barry winced at the sight, and kicked the business end away.  'Ah, hell.  Doesn't Tsang know how much I bloody hate the jungle?'

Clark shrugged.  'Maybe she knows you're not going to be having too much fun to get on with the mission.  You'll have noticed how we never get assigned to guard the wine cellars of five-star colonial hotels.'

'Life's a #####,' Barry grumbled.

'No, life's a politician, because at least you know where you stand with a #####.'

Barry looked at the remains of the snake, then at the logging camp.  'Do we really want to go round this place?'

Clark blinked.  'What do you mean?'

'Loggers have logging camps, right?  That makes for a ready-made fire base, with shelter and room for choppers to come in.  Everybody stays the hell away from logging roads, so that makes it a ready-made, built-in, psychological defence against wandering locals.'

Clark gazed at him levelly.  'And it has doors to keep the snakes out?'