by Larry Bond
The trail seemed to meander almost without purpose or direction. He began stopping at every turn, peeking forward around a tree or thick bush, sure he was going to spot a village just ahead. But there was nothing.
Gradually, Josh began to relax. He picked up his pace. Finally, perhaps two kilometers after starting on the path, he smelled the faint odor of a fire in the distance. A few minutes later, he smelled food.
I’ll stop here now, he told himself. I’ll find a place to hide until nightfall. Then I’ll go and see what I can find of use in the village.
Food.
He didn’t want to get too close to whatever village the food was being cooked at—if he was too close, his hunger might take over and he would do something stupid. He walked for a good ten minutes before finding a good place to stop, a low niche in an embankment formed by large tree roots along the side of the trail. The shadows would hide him completely, yet he’d still be able to see the trail. He climbed into the spot, a bird stealing another’s nest.
Josh took a sip of water. The sky had been clear; once the moon came out, there would be plenty of light to see by. Sneaking into the village would be easy. Getting inside one of the huts might be a little harder—he’d have to do it without being heard, difficult in their small houses.
Was that what had happened in the village he’d been in? Maybe the Chinese hadn’t killed the people at all—maybe it had been someone as desperate to survive as he was.
No. The entire village had not only been killed; they’d been buried. He knew what he had seen, and he had the proof in his pocket.
Josh arched his back, slipping his hand into his pocket for the satellite phone. He turned it on again, different number combinations running through his head.
As the device powered up, a message flashed briefly on the screen: EMERGENCY SERVICE ONLY. The phone was set to dial an emergency number, whether its account was open or not.
Yes! But what was it? 7-0-7? 1-1-2?
God, he couldn’t remember. He could picture the session in Tokyo where Dr. Renaldo’s assistant Tracey told them how to use the phones, but he couldn’t remember the number.
God, she was beautiful.
She’d gone only as far as Tokyo. He remembered wishing she was coming; now he was glad she hadn’t.
Josh tried the first combination that came into his head.
CONNECTED.
Connected!
He stared at the phone, not quite believing it. By the time he got it to his ear, the operator was asking what the nature of his call was.
The man had a British-Malaysian accent.
“My name is Josh MacArthur. Dr. Joshua MacArthur,” he said, using the honorific though he had not been given the degree yet, hoping it would make him sound more important. “I am working for the UN. I’m in Vietnam. The Chinese have just invaded across the border. They attacked us. They killed everyone in the expedition. I’m a few kilometers, no more than ten, from the base camp. Maybe less than ten. I don’t know. There was a village nearby. They attacked it. Murdered civilians. I have video. It’s—it’s pretty disgusting.”
Josh stopped speaking. The operator hadn’t said anything, not even “Go on” or “Yes” or “You’re out of your mind.” He listened for a moment, trying to hear breathing on the other side.
“Are you there?” asked Josh.
There was no answer.
“Are you there? I’m with the UN. We need help.”
Josh fought to keep the desperation from his voice, but it was impossible.
“Are you there? Operator? This is an emergency. Operator?”
The phone claimed it was connected, but Josh couldn’t hear anything. It was as if the line had been cut.
Had there really been an operator? Or had he imagined it?
“Hello? Hello?” he repeated. “I’ll hang up and dial again.”
He hesitated, then pressed the red button.
Don’t panic, he told himself. But his fingers trembled as he redialed.
The word CONNECTED came on the screen again. But this time, there was no answer from the operator, just more quiet.
“This is Josh MacArthur. I’m with the UN. We’ve been attacked in northwestern Vietnam. We need help. Can you hear me? Hello? Hello? …”
There was nothing in response, not even a signal telling him he had misdialed. The line didn’t even seem dead. It was more like a vacuum, sucking sound away: a static-free limbo.
Josh hit the End Call button.
Whom else could he call?
His uncle in Iowa.
He punched in the numbers and hit Send. But this time the phone didn’t connect at all—it was still in emergency mode.
Whatever was going on must be affecting the phones. Dejected, Josh stuck the phone in his pocket and gazed back at the trail, struggling to separate the shadows into those that were real, and those his mind invented.
9
Northern Vietnam
The settlement where Mara and the wounded Vietnamese pilot Kieu had been taken was so small that there were no televisions; the nearest was in the marginally larger Nam Det, about two kilometers up the road. With Kieu resting and seemingly in good care, Mara decided to go there and see if she could get news from the wider world. One of the young men who had carried the stretcher was appointed to be her guide, and they set out just as it was turning dark.
The Vietnamese knew that something serious was happening. They’d seen the MiG overhead and heard the gunfire that had led to the crash and explosion. But they didn’t seem overly curious about the situation. They made no attempt to ask Mara what was going on. She supposed curiosity was not a good characteristic in a dictatorship. Still, she knew no good ever came from closing one’s eyes to trouble, and found herself asking her escort what he thought was going on as they walked to NamDet.
He didn’t answer. Mara wasn’t sure whether he didn’t understand what she was saying—she was still struggling with the language’s tones and accent—or whether he had been instructed not to say anything. She tried again, a little louder, pretending there was a possibility that he hadn’t heard.
Again he said nothing.
“Am I saying the words wrong?” she said.
“Your pronunciation need work,” said the young man in English.
“You speak English,” replied Mara, also in English.
“We learn in school.”
“So what do you think?”
“Think?”
“About the Chinese attack. Aren’t you curious? Do you think it’s true?”
“If you say those were Chinese planes, why wouldn’t I believe you?” He seemed genuinely surprised that she would think he didn’t.
“Are you going to defend your country?”
“I am not in the army.”
“Are you going to join?”
“If the government tells me to join, then I will be in the army.”
“I would think—I know if America was attacked, I would want to join the army.”
“You are not in the army?”
“I’m a journalist,” said Mara, reverting to her cover story.
The young man nodded, but he didn’t seem convinced. Probably like Kieu, he assumed she worked for the CIA.
“What do you do now?” Mara asked. “What work?”
“We farm.”
“You?”
“Me, yes.”
“And you still go to school? You studied English—are you going to move to Hanoi or Saigon when you graduate?”
The young man explained that the school was more like an American grammar school, and that students there learned French and English by the time they were twelve. At that time, they also generally went to work in their village, which was what he had done. He had not been in a schoolroom for several years.
“It is not like in the south,” said the young man, who still hadn’t volunteered his name. “Some of the older people—many of the older people—don’t think we should learn English. But it is
a necessary language.”
“What about Chinese?”
The young man smiled, reeling off a few Chinese phrases so quickly Mara couldn’t decipher them all, though her Chinese was somewhat better than her Vietnamese. It seemed amazing that someone with what amounted to a middle-school education could speak four different languages, but the young man assured her it was not unusual. The Vietnamese people were willing to work hard, he said, to “advance in knowledge.”
The young man took her to a house that belonged to his uncle, who was one of the village elders. It was larger than the hut where she’d left Kieu, with more furniture and possessions, but there was no mistaking it for a rich man’s home. The only signs of prosperity—indeed, the only things in the house that would not have been there fifty years before—were a refrigerator, which stood against the wall in the front room, and the television, which stood opposite it. The TV and refrigerator could not be on at the same time; her interpreter’s uncle ordered the refrigerator cord pulled from the wall before plugging in the television. The two lights in the room blinked as the set was turned on.
Mara waited while the picture came up. A picture of dancers dressed in elaborate costumes appeared; they twirled their skirts across the screen.
“A cultural show,” said the young man.
The uncle changed the channel. An Indian movie, dubbed into Vietnamese, appeared.
“Is there a news channel?” Mara asked.
They put on the “official” government station—the others, though heavily censored and owned by the government, were officially “unofficial.”
It was showing a travelogue on Ho Chi Minh City.
“There has to be some news,” said Mara. She asked how the signal came to the sets and learned it was supplied by a satellite. “Can we change the orientation? To get signals from other stations?”
The uncle’s face grew tense as soon as his nephew explained what Mara wanted to do. The signal came from a satellite dish that he had applied for a license to use. When he was issued the license, he had also been given a descrambler to pick up the allowed signal—and only the allowed signal.
“The device blocks other signals,” the young man told Mara. “He’s not saying that, but everyone knows it’s true. And there is a wire on the dish mechanism—if it’s moved, the authorities will find out.”
“A wire? It reports back?”
“It’s more like a lock.”
“He can put it back and make it seem as if it hasn’t been touched,” said Mara. “They won’t find out.”
But the uncle would not be persuaded.
“Tell him the Chinese are attacking your country,” said Mara. “Tell him it’s important to find out what’s going on, before you are killed.”
“I tried. He said the government will let us know what needs to be done. We will not be defeated by the Chinese.”
Frustrated, Mara walked outside for some fresh air. She still had a few minutes before it was time to check in with Bangkok. Rather than calling early, she began walking up the street, looking to see if there were any vehicles she might borrow or, more likely, buy. She could use one to scout around the local roads, checking on the Chinese advance, before whatever Bangkok arranged to get her out.
Or just drive south to Hanoi and bug out on her own.
A flatbed truck was parked in a front yard two houses down, so close to the house that the bumper nearly touched the wall. Mara decided she wanted something else—the people here would need it if they had to flee.
“My uncle doesn’t believe there is a war,” said her translator, jogging up to join her as she stood looking at the truck.
“Where does he think the MiG came from?”
“It must have been a government plane, he says, and you are some sort of pirate.”
“Did he see the markings? It was clearly Chinese.”
“He couldn’t see the plane from here.”
“You saw the plane?”
The young man nodded. “Everyone in my village did. My uncle did, too, I’m sure. He’s just stubborn.”
“What’s your name?”
“Tom Khiaw.”
They shook hands, as if meeting for the first time.
“One of the village leaders was a mechanic for the air force in the American war, and knows the markings,” explained Tom. “But to my uncle, claiming that you are a pirate makes more sense than China being at war with us. You are American.”
“What will happen tomorrow when the government announces that you are at war?” asked Mara.
“I don’t know.”
“You’re not that far from the border. The road network is bad, but still.”
“I think—we will wait and do as the government says. The old people will listen for what Uncle Ho tells them.”
Uncle Ho was Ho Chi Minh—Vietnam’s legendary leader, dead now many years. Tom—the name was pronounced as if it had two o’s—saw Mara’s confused expression and tried to explain.
“Uncle Ho is still with us in a way,” said the young man. “His spirit lives on.”
He meant that literally; many in Vietnam and in Asia believed that a person, especially one as important as Ho Chi Minh had been, continued to look after people following his death. Having saved the country from both the French and the Americans, he would undoubtedly do the same against the Chinese, who were more ancient enemies.
There was no sense debating religion. Mara pointed at the truck.
“Is there something smaller than that? Maybe a motorcycle that I could drive to Hanoi?”
“I know two people who have motorbikes. They’re at the other end of this street.”
“I have to make a phone call. You go there. I’ll follow.”
Mara waited until he was a little ways up the street before taking out her phone. Larry Hammer had taken over for DeBiase, and answered in his undertaker voice.
“How’s it going?” he asked.
“All right, considering.” Mara gave him a quick update. “How long before you can get a plane up here? I want to get Kieu out—if the Chinese find him, they’ll probably arrest him.”
“Why would they arrest him?”
“For the same reason they tried to shoot us down,” she said. “They just will. All these people are in trouble, but they don’t seem to realize it. Or maybe they do and they don’t want to face it.”
“Listen, Lucas wants to talk to you,” said Hammer suddenly. “Here he is.”
“Hey, boss, how’s it hanging?”
“Mara, we have to talk.” His tone was dead-dirt serious, nearly always a sign of big trouble.
“Fire away.”
“It’s going to be a while before we get you out,” said Lucas.
“How long?”
“I don’t know. Maybe not until tomorrow or the next night. Maybe longer. At the moment I’m under orders to sit tight.”
“Things are that bad here?”
“They’re that confused. We should know a little more by the morning. I want you to stay in touch.”
She resisted the impulse to give him a wise-ass response. “Tell me where the Chinese are,” she said evenly.
Lucas sighed. Mara realized he couldn’t—if she somehow fell into Chinese hands, or even Vietnamese, and told them what she knew of the Chinese advance and when she knew it, she would pass on valuable information about the U.S.’s intelligence-gathering capabilities.
Which meant the Chinese must be very close. Damn close.
“Should I go back to Hanoi?”
Lucas hesitated. “I can’t tell you to do that. It may be too dangerous.”
“More dangerous than here?”
“Things are moving very quickly. Their intentions are not entirely clear, and our reconnaissance—” He stopped himself, leaving her to guess what he had decided was too sensitive to share. “All I’m asking is for you to sit tight for now,” said Lucas. “I’ll figure something out.”
“Like?”
“I don’t know.
I will get you. You can count on that.”
“Uh-huh.”
“It’s not like Malaysia. I’m not Croton.”
“Hey, boss, I never said you were. And as far as Croton goes—we all work with what we got, right?”
“Mara, I promise—”
“I’m worried about the phone’s battery, boss. I’ll sign back on at 0600 tomorrow. Sayonara until then.”
Peter Lucas handed the communications headset back to Hammer.
“How’d she take it?” asked Hammer.
“About what I expected.”
“She’s going to stay put?”
“Probably,” said Lucas.
“If she can get down to Saigon, she can get out,” said Hammer. “Even Hanoi.”
“She’s okay where she is for now. Farther south, she may run into the Chinese. Until we know exactly where they’re going, I can’t tell her to leave. I may be sending her right into a trap.”
“She’s in one already if they send more troops through Lao Cai.”
“Hey, Peter, you may want to look at this NSA summary,” said Gina DiMarco, who was monitoring the National Security bulletins at a nearby workstation. Gina was a cryptography clerk Lucas had pressed into service to help keep up with the data flow.
“What am I looking at?” he asked, dropping down to one knee to look at her screen.
“The Chinese started selectively blocking satellite phone communications from the area satellite phone services a few hours ago. AsiaSat2, Iridium—they’ve all been hit. The system is pretty sophisticated—there’s technical information on what exactly they’re doing back in this tab here.”
She rolled the cursor up and tapped one of the windows. A screen dense with words appeared.
“Do I need to know how this all works?” Lucas asked.
“No,” she said, clearly disappointed.
A strong scent stung Lucas’s nose.
“What’d you have for dinner?” he asked.
“Som tam.” Papaya salad—with chilies. “My breath bad?”
“It’s sharp, Gina.”
“Sorry, boss. About an hour ago, a member of a UN science team tried calling out on the emergency line. The Chinese blocked the other side of the transmission shortly after it began. Then they blocked it completely, but he still continued to talk.”