Spratly islands

 

The trouble had started as soon as he entered the Spratly Islands area. Coming from the Philippines, he had to explore these reefs and atolls crushed by the sun. Drones and satellites had detected suspicious movements by the Vietnamese. He had been asked to check on the spot. He was the "human intelligence" that the textbooks talked about... Except that he was not the specialized operative in the area. The "correspondents" in Vietnam apparently had problems and he had been asked to come and check. Since he had Chinese blood on his mother's side and spoke a few words of Vietnamese, the guys at the Bureau thought he would be fine... He refused, they insisted.

So he left the Balabac Islands on what looked like a common fisherman's canoe and ventured out onto the reefs. It was complicated, as the Vietnamese naval infantry often patrolled, not at all determined to let spies poke around in an area rich in gas and oil. He had been spotted on the first day off Đảo Sinh Tồn. The military had shot at it.

Fortunately, he had two Yamaha F225F engines, the latest generation 24-valve V6s, on his canoe. This had allowed him to outrun the Yurka patrol that had chased him. But his escape provoked the anger of the Vietnamese. Several other ships, including a Tarantuli, had appeared on the horizon, blocking any escape route to the Philippines or Malaysia.

He did not want to fall into the hands of the Vietnamese at all. Their treatment of spies alternated between immediate death and life imprisonment...

That is why, when the militiamen came, he had immediately chosen to welcome them at 7.62. From then on, he had no other choice than to run almost in a straight line towards the Vietnamese coast, taking advantage of the shallow draft of his boat.

His mission was a failure. He had no information to bring to his department and he had been spotted. He had no one to contact in Vietnam, no one to help him, no one to help him escape. He had fallen into the lion's den. He knew he could only get out if he stayed calm. It would be difficult...

It was dark when he approached the coast, somewhere south of Cam Ranh. There was a naval base there, which meant a large concentration of military personnel... He had pulled his boat up the beach to the bushes and waited. There was a big traffic in safrole, an ingredient in methylenedioxymethamphetamine, commonly known as Ecstasy, between Vietnam and the Philippines. With a little luck, they mistook him for a drug dealer. The penalty was the same: the death penalty. Several foreign nationals had been executed by firing squad in Vietnam for drug-related offenses. But there would be fewer people looking for him than if he was thought to be spying on a strategic military area.

Daylight was falling. He had put branches on his boat and buried himself as best he could on the ground. He had sprayed himself with permethrin to protect himself from insect bites. He had his Tokarev pistol and his 7.62 mm light machine gun just in case. At over fifty years old, his years of military training were long gone and, in any case, if a patrol caught him, he would not last long.

A MIG-21 had flown over the area, then a helicopter, probably a KA-28. The area was now under heavy surveillance. A patrol was passing by; border guards or popular militia, he didn't know. Their uniforms were disparate. The Vietnamese army was under-resourced. He watched them through binoculars. The guys were laughing among themselves. They didn't seem to be on alert. He had relaxed, so maybe it wasn't impossible for him to get out.

As night fell, he had heard a very slight noise behind him. An animal was almost touching him. He had not turned his head. If it was a commando, he would just have to wait for death. Two minutes later, a snake over a meter long passed in front of him. He looked at the black body, covered with white transverse lines. A Chinese cobra!

Above all, don't move. If he felt threatened, the animal would spit its venom. It could make a man go blind. If he was bitten by the animal, the pain would be immediate, he would vomit and writhe in pain. The snake he had before him was potentially deadly. The only advantage was that its bite could make him mute in case of interrogation...

As the reptile moved away, he watched in horror as two men approached in the distance. They had not seen him. If they were from the local defense militia, he would be reported.

As they approached, he decided to change his tactics. He turned on a radio. A hit song by singer Sơn Tùng M-TP was playing on Tieng Noi Vietnam, the Voice of Vietnam.

He deliberately turned his back to them, pretending to work slowly on his bag. He watched them approach from behind, looking at the camera on his phone. He kept his other hand on his Tokarev. They walked past him without seeming to be interested in him.

On their way back, the two men might have to report his presence to the militia. As soon as they moved away, he immediately pulled his boat into the water. Night had fallen. He put on his night vision goggles and headed for the Philippines.