by David Poyer
“One-sided concessions. What would you do in return?”
“I’d have to consult with my government. Maybe … letting some humanitarian supplies through the blockade. But if fighting died down, maybe both nations could back away from the nuclear brink.”
Dark eyes widened. “You are saying the United States is planning to attack us with nuclear weapons?”
She cursed herself. Unfortunately, she was actually privy to the plans for just such a strike. Or at least, the preliminary studies. “I’m not saying that. I don’t know. But I do know one thing. China and America are the most powerful countries in the world. If this war goes on, it will end with both exhausted and devastated. Surely your premier can’t want that.”
A tilt of the head. “It is not always easy for a courtier to know what the emperor desires. But I, in turn, will tell you something. You are using famine as a weapon. Your biological warfare targets our rice and grain crops, threatening millions with starvation.”
“I’m sure we’re not conducting anything remotely resembling biological warfare. And what about your repeated sabotage of our power plants, our power supplies? With these heat waves, we’re losing—”
Yun leaned forward. His voice vibrated, though it was still pitched beneath the clatter of silverware, the chatter of tourists.”Your electricity is a legitimate industrial target. Be quiet and listen! America is carrying out the greatest atrocity of all times. But China will no longer suffer quietly.
“I am here to warn you. We know what you are planning! We are not fools! Your dogs in Washington must know this: if the Party’s rule is threatened, we will not go down without turning your entire country into radioactive ashes.”
“I’m not sure—”
“I said listen! This is no empty threat. It would be most unwise to push him to that brink you mention. He will not step back from it … as the Russian, Khrushchev, once did.”
She bought time by starting on the apple tart. She’d hoped he might present a way forward. A message from a splinter group: disenchanted oligarchs frightened of losing their fortunes, generals wary of Zhang’s firing squads, disgruntled industrialists. Instead she was getting a declaration that the enemy government was solid. And that, pushed too far, Zhang would unleash catastrophe. “I have to tell you, there are those in my government who feel exactly the same way,” she murmured. “We will not retreat. Nor be pushed out of the western Pacific. And we will never abandon our allies. Even if it comes to trading city for city.”
“I will take your words back with me,” Yun said. He surveyed his raisin-littered plate, patted his lips with the napkin, and rose. He was gone before she realized he’d stuck her with the tab.
In the rain, the darkness, she stood outside, struggling with the folding umbrella in a little pedestrian mall whose slanting concrete slabs were sheeted with gleaming water. The icy rain, halfway to sleet now, pattered down cold and dispiriting and endless. Reflecting the helplessness chilling her heart.
No, it wouldn’t end so easily. Both sides would fight relentlessly on.
And many more would die.
10
Eastern Maryland
IT was still raining when the bus pulled in. The windows were streaked and the sky was gray in the early morning. Hector was home at last, though for a while it hadn’t seemed like he’d make it. No flights, even for military members on leave. No way to rent a car, even if he could afford twenty-dollar-a-gallon gas. Which had left the bus.
But gradually the plains had climbed to the rolling Appalachians, then smoothed again. He’d changed at Washington, where a young white woman had spat on his uniform outside the terminal. Changed again at Baltimore, and headed south.
Now, three days into his week’s leave, the bus pulled off Route 13. It halted, groaning like a weary mammoth, at the Exxon station where, centuries ago, he’d boarded for boot camp.
The pile of worn used tires for sale looked exactly the same. All that had changed was the price, five times higher than when he’d left. He waited, sweating in the early heat, as the driver dragged his duffel out of the luggage compartment, and thanked him.
“Hey, thank you, soldier.”
“Marine,” Hector said, then wondered why he’d bothered.
Oh yeah. That was what one of his dead friends had said, when someone had called her a soldier.
No telling when he’d get in, so he hadn’t let anyone know he was coming. He shouldered his duffel and headed down the road. The rain was easing off. It looked like it was clearing. Not a hundred yards on, a grizzled black man in a battered pickup pulled over for him. Hector started to refuse, noting a faded bumper sticker that read MI CASA NO ES SU CASA. But he was dead on his feet. He’d tried to sleep on the bus, but the coughing and wheezing had gone on all night long. So he grabbed the door handle, dragged it open, and climbed in.
He settled in, looking out the cranked-down window. The Shore smelled like it always did in spring. Turned earth. Soybeans. A gold-and-lavender frost of pollen and petals gilded the old truck’s hood. A vile, low-hanging stench blew in through the windows on the hot wind: a ramshackle chicken house, half hidden behind a row of scraggy pines.
There were hardly any cars on the road. In the distance rows of people in wide-brimmed hats and kerchiefs stretched across a wide field, bent low over plowed ground. Men on horses cradled shotguns.
The old man didn’t say much, just puttered along at thirty-five. Hector leaned to inspect a yellow ticket pasted inside the windshield. “Five gallon a month,” the old man muttered. He pulled out to the left, lifting a hand as he passed a small cart pulled by two panting pit bulls. The cart driver nodded.
When the old man turned back Hector saw that the left side of his face was melted, burned, distorted. He wore a black eye patch on that side.
“See you got the Heart,” the old man said at last.
Hector touched the ribbon. “Yeah.”
“China?”
“Aren’t there yet. On an island.”
“Uh-huh. Vietnam, m’self.”
“That right? What branch?”
“Eleventh Cav.”
“Tanks?”
“ACAVs—M113s. There in sixty-seven and sixty-eight.”
Hector looked at his seamed half-horrible face. “Wounded?”
“In the Iron Triangle. RPG come through that aluminum armor. I’s the only crew got out.”
Hector glanced at him again. “Does it … go away?”
They drove for a mile before the old man muttered, single-eyed gaze fixed sternly on the road ahead, “It don’t never go away, my man. It don’t never.”
* * *
THE veteran dropped him at the shell drive to his mom’s house. He contemplated the battered mailbox. Remembering the time his dad had come home, and they’d mixed concrete and dug in the post for it. Finally he shouldered his duffel and trudged on, boots scuffing up bleached broken shells and dead leaves. A horse was tethered in Mrs. Figueroa’s yard. It snorted and eyed him as he shuffled past. God, it was hot here.
The key was under the mat. “Mom,” he called, inside. No answer. Maybe they were all at work. He dropped his gear in front of the TV and flicked a light switch. No power.
He wandered through the little house. The kitchen was a stench of garbage and buzzing flies. Dirty dishes piled the sink. Up the narrow creaking stairs to his old room. The heat was thick up here. A second bed had been crammed into it, and someone had taken down his posters. An extra mattress lay on the floor in his mom’s room too.
Back downstairs he found farm eggs in the fridge, chilled with a half-melted bag of ice from the Shore Stop, and made himself eggs and toast. He ate at the kitchen table, then washed up in the bathroom from a pitcher of water and shaved. He threw his uniform in the washer and turned it on before remembering the power was out. He pulled it out again and draped it on a hanger.
Upstairs again, after some rooting around he found his clothes in a plastic storage box under his mom’s bed
. He put on jeans, a T-shirt, and running shoes and went downstairs again. Stood motionless, looking in the mirror over the sideboard. Then turned abruptly and went out the back door.
His old car was there, but up on blocks. Leaves and pine needles covered the hood halfway up the windshield. A chesty brown dog he didn’t know was tied up by it. It barked at him, but when he held out a hand it sniffed it, then let him approach. He shook the red plastic gas can they used for the lawn mower, but it was empty.
He unlatched the door carefully and slid into the battered Kia. The seat felt damp and squishy. The interior stank of mold. A dusty pink plastic rosary hung from the rearview. He twisted the key, in the ignition. Not even a chatter. “You were always a piece of shit anyway,” he told it. He touched the rosary, then dropped it into his pocket.
He pulled his old bike out of the garage, inflated the cracked, mud-caked tires with a hand pump, oiled the chain, and pedaled down the drive. He cycled slowly through the neighborhood, then out onto the main road. Not one car passed him all the way into town. Most of the stores were closed there too. Even the Dollar General. A ghost town, like in a Stephen King movie.
All too soon he was at the plant. It was running, though, with plumes of steam and smoke coming off the stacks and cooling towers, and the usual horde of seagulls wheeling and screaming above, or strutting stiffly about the parking lot as if protesting what was happening to their fellow birds inside. The smell was the same too, a dense eye-watering stench of manure, burnt feathers, and ammonia. Diesels droned: generators, back by the loading dock. He kicked the stand down and leaned the bike against the chain link, where a sign read
* * *
DEFENSE ESSENTIAL PLANT. AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY. DEFENSA ESENCIAL INSTALACIÓN. SOLO PERSONAL AUTORIZADO.
* * *
The guard in the shack glanced up from a magazine. “Ramos?”
“Hey, Jessup.”
“Thought you was in the service.”
“Home on leave. Thought I’d stop in and say hi to the guys.”
“Go on in,” the guard said. “Prob’ly not too many left from your time though. Been a lot of turnover.”
The trucks squatted by the loading dock, engines off. There weren’t any drivers lounging around talking where they used to either. A forklift was shuttling cells onto the conveyor. The operator, a short black woman, waved him impatiently out of her way.
As he climbed the steps he could hear it. A familiar metallic crashing, underlain by the hum of electric motors.
He had to stop and breathe for a few seconds before he could stick his head into the Hook Room.
Stainless hooks marched steadily along, dangling from a polished I beam. From them hung upside-down U’s of heavy, polished metal, just long enough to trap a hand. The endless chain passed through a slot in the concrete-block wall. The concrete floor was spattered with a brownish-black crust inches thick.
The birds were fighting and pecking as four workers pulled them out of their modules. The women wore goggles, thin rubber gloves, and heavy boots. They flipped bird after bird upside down, spun, and hooked the claws into the wire loops. Inverted, the birds stopped struggling. And with a musical jingle, an electric hum, the Line carried them on, out of sight, through the slot in the wall.
A heavyset fortyish woman in a blood- and shit-spattered canvas apron lifted an arm to shield her eyes. She peered, blinked, then gestured furiously for him to close the door.
Hector had to sit on the concrete steps to the loading dock for a while, breathing hard and holding his head. At last he got up slowly, and walked back down the road.
* * *
“HEY, ’f it idn’t fucking Heck-tor Ray-mose. Back from the wars.”
Hector tensed. He was sitting at the bar at Porky’s, nursing a beer. Early, but who cared. A chill prickled his back despite the heat. Grasping the bottle, he spun around on the stool.
To face … Mahmou’.
His old enemy from the plant had gained weight. He looked older, but better dressed than when they’d worked in the Hanging Room. He was even wearing a tie. Hector stared, surprised less at his former adversary’s appearance than at his own lack of terror. The other had stolen money from him, bullied him, made fun of his slowness at arithmetic. Hector had always dreaded meeting up with him.
Confronted with his silence, the Arab seemed taken aback. “So … um I read something ’bout you in the paper. Some kinda medal.”
“Yeah.” Hector held his gaze.
“Well, uh-huh. You back for good?”
“Week’s leave. Before we ship out again.” Hector looked him up and down, from the new dress loafers to the slicked-back black hair. “I didn’t see you at the plant.”
“I work in the Zone now.” Mahmou’ glanced at the bartender. “A beer. And another for my old friend.”
“The Zone,” Hector repeated. “What’s that?”
“Used to be the prison. They moved all the old convicts out and brought the others in.”
“What others?”
“You know, the slants … Pakis … Jehovah’s Witnesses. Antiwar woollies. Enemy symps. All women, this facility.” Mahmou’ shrugged and smiled as he pushed a bill across the bar. “A two-week school, and now I’m Cat One, in charge of thirty guards.” He smirked. “And since you ask, yeah, I been porkin’ ’em all. Plus half the inmates. Any that’s worth bonin’, I mean. Give ’em some store, a day off fieldwork … they’re real grateful, if you know what I mean.”
“Cat One. Exempt, right?”
“Reserved occupation, amigo. Vital to the war effort. As important as whatever they got you doing. Maybe not so dangerous. But maybe, yeah, maybe it’s just as dangerous. In other ways.” Mahmou’ grinned, his upper lip lifting the same way it used to when he’d call Hector a dumbass, a wetback, dumber than chickenshit. “We both come a long way from the Kill Room, din’t we? Hey, you wanna come by the camp, I can like, hook you up. A little recreation for the big hero. There’s this brunette, hey, I think you know her. Mirielle. She gives the best—”
Hector’s head lifted so fast a muscle protested in his neck. “Mirielle works for you?”
“Hell yeah, out at the camp.”
“Huh. Let’s go someplace we can talk.” Hector nodded at the bartender. “Like, out back.”
A few minutes later he was wheeling away on his bike, sucking skinned knuckles. He hadn’t killed the fucker. Just reminded him of all the times he’d stolen from him, played tricks on him. Halfway through Mahmou’ had begged, on his knees. Offered whatever he wanted, just to stop. But Hector hadn’t stopped. Until the chingado wasn’t begging anymore.
He swerved to the side of the road, where it crossed a culvert, and threw Mahmou’s car keys and wallet into the scummy water. Then pedaled on.
* * *
HE was waiting on her porch, on the glider, feet propped on a pillar, when she let herself down off the bus and trudged up the drive. Mirielle was in a blue pants uniform like nurse’s scrubs. Her long hair was trapped in a net. Her shoulders drooped and she was thinner than he remembered. She halted when she looked up at the porch. Then came on. Her confident stride was gone. She limped as if her feet hurt.
“Hector, ¿eres tú?”
He stood and stretched. “Sí, claro. It’s me.”
“What happened? Last time you wrote, you were in California.”
“On leave. Before we ship out again.”
She climbed the steps and stood there uncertainly, biting her lip and not looking at him. Hector almost took her in his arms, but her expression stopped him. Instead he looked around. “How’s your mom and dad?”
She raised her arms to take the hairnet off, revealing sweat stains at her armpits, food stains on her smock. She caught his glance and lowered them, flushing. “They’re all right. How’s your mom?”
“I guess okay. Haven’t seen her yet. Just got back this morning.”
She shook her hair out and sighed. Crossed her arms, hugging herself. She kept lif
ting her gaze to his, then quickly dropping it. She used to do that in math class. When he would be hunched over his paper, staring hopelessly at the equations. “I’m glad you’re okay. I was worried, when you wrote from that hospital.”
“I’m okay now. I guess.”
“Well, you want to sit out here? I’ll get some tea. We don’t have no ice, but there’s well water. It’s nice, in the shade of the camellias.”
He said sure. She went inside, and came out again with tall glasses of tea with mint syrup. She’d changed her top and combed her hair. He shoved over on the glider to make room.
She apologized again that there was no ice. “They used to turn the electricity on for a couple hours in the evening, so people could make dinner and maybe watch TV. But now it’s out, all over the Shore. No lights. No air-conditioning. Everybody says the old people are just going to die, if we get another heat wave like last summer. But they need all the power for the Victory Plan, they say.”
“Yeah, looks like everybody’s working hard.”
“Everybody’s got a job, sure. But you have to go where they say, and take what they offer. There’s no union or strikes or walkouts anymore.” She cast a frightened glance toward the main road. “The Loyalty Leaguers keep track of everybody. You can’t say anything against the war, or you end up in the camp. They burned down Mr. Wilson’s house, for saying things about the president. Anyway … you were in the fighting. Was it bad?”
“It was pretty bad.”
“You lost friends?”
“Yeah.”
They rocked for a while in silence. Finally Hector asked her where her folks’ carport was. She said it had gone during a scrap drive.
He thought about not asking, then about asking; and finally did. “I heard you work in the Zone.”
She looked away. “In the kitchen. I just, you know, cook. Everybody’s got to eat.… How’d you know that?”