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“You really think you can sell everybody on this idea?” Overholt asked

“This mission’s like an onion,” Cabrillo said “Every time I peel back a layer, there’s a layer underneath”

“That’s not the half of it,” Overholt said “The Dalai Lama has a new plan”

“I can’t wait,” Cabrillo said

“I think you’re going to like it,” Overholt told him

38

THEOregon docked off Ho Chi Minh City The team that would enter Tibet was transported by shore boat to land Then they were driven in a Vietnamese air force truck to the airport, where the C-130 sat waiting The total Corporation force would number a baker’s dozen

Six , Meadows and Kasim—would be tasked with the offensive operations They would link up with the Dungkar already inside the country and direct theets to hit first Crabtree and Gannon, ere already in Bhutan awaiting the teaistics Adae of setting up and operating the Predator drones Huxley was tasked with setting up a medical facility to treat anyone wounded or injured

The thirteenth member was Cabrillo He would arrive after he finished his pair of s

To the untrained, the ainst a force that was close to two thousand Odds of one hundred and fifty-plus to one It looked like a bloodbath in thefor the Chinese troops First, one had to consider the Dungkar, the shadowy underground Chinese opposition thought to nukar would burn with a fever that only co an enemy on home soil Second was the ele for a concentrated and expertly executed coup d’etat in the next twenty-four hours The third was the most basic It is almost a certainty that a well-planned offense will defeat an unplanned defense every single time

That here the Corporation excelled

Already,north in a helter-skelter deploy and even less for preparation The troops left around Lhasa were not the cream of the crop; they were the leftovers—the administration clerks, mechanics and painters, plodders and planners The officers were not coeable about their individual soldiers’ strengths and weaknesses, and would lack a coether

Right now in Tibet, the arn

KASIM walked from the truck and approached the C-130 radio operator “What have you got from inside?” he asked

“We have another plane circling out of sight of the Chinese deploy theht now,fuel du the fuel supply”