Edge of War - [Red Dragon Rising 02]

by Larry Bond

  “What if you have a more complicated question?”

  “Then I’ll have to play it by ear,” said Mara.

  “This is all the help you want?”

  Mara contemplated giving him a copy of the video and stills Josh had shot of the massacre. Washington had ordered her not to transmit the files, since she couldn’t safely encrypt them. It was likely the Chinese would intercept the transmission, and they could break any commercial encryption, just as the CIA could. Once they had the images, they would find a way to alter them, releasing versions before the U.S. did.

  But what if she didn’t make it? Murphy could be a backup.

  No. Her orders were specific: trust absolutely no one with the files, even Americans. Even Zeus, though he hadn’t been named.

  “It’s all the help you can give me,” she said. “Can you find your way back to your hotel?”

  He looked around. “I’m honestly not sure.”

  “Take a right there, go two blocks, then take a left,” said Mara, pointing. “You’ll be back on the avenue. Keep going and you’ll reach your hotel. If you get stuck, you can always ask the soldiers who are trailing you. They’re a block and a half behind.”

  ~ * ~

  6

  Over Hanoi

  Stepping into the air was a relief.

  Jing Yo pinned his elbows close to his ribs, his legs tucked up. He wanted to wait until the last possible moment to deploy his chute.

  The city grew before his eyes, the yellow speckles resolving into spot-lights and guns. He’d parachuted so often that he didn’t even need to glance at the altimeter on his wrist to know when to pull the cord; he could just wait for the twinkles to stop.

  He thought of what would happen if he didn’t pull, if he just continued to fall.

  Oblivion was everyone’s eventual reward. But it was hubris to try to steal it from fate, to seek it before one’s assigned time. The way was unending; attempt to cheat it on one turn of the wheel and the next would make you pay.

  Jing Yo pulled the cord. The chute exploded into the air behind him. He felt the strong tug on his shoulders and at his thighs. He took hold of the toggles and began to steer.

  He wanted a black spot to land on. He fought off the blur, steadied his eyes. The guns were still firing, but they had moved northwest, following the small aircraft that had flown him here.

  Jing Yo aimed for what he thought was a field, then realized almost too late that it was the flat roof of a large single-story building at the end of a road. He pitched himself right, and managed to swing the parachute into the small yard behind the building. His rucksack hit the ground a moment before he did, giving him just enough warning.

  The next few minutes rushed by. He gathered the parachute. He found a large garbage bin behind the building and placed it inside. He put the jump helmet and goggles there as well. He unpacked the rucksack, unfolding the bicycle he would use to get into the city. He took his pistol and positioned it beneath his belt. He made sure his knife was ready. He considered changing his boots—he’d worn heavy combat wear for the jump—but thought better of it.

  Finally, he started to ride.

  Only when his foot touched the pedal did he hear the dogs barking. Even then, he thought they were just random sounds, the sort of alarm a nosy pet might make when catching an unfamiliar scent in the field.

  Then he heard shouts, and he realized someone was hunting for him.

  Jing Yo began pedaling in earnest. The street before him lit up— headlights, coming from behind him. The beams caught the rusted crisscross of a chain-link fence on the right side of the road, then swung back, reflecting off the houses that lined the left.

  He glanced over his shoulder. A pickup was following him.

  Though a strong cycler, Jing Yo was no match for the truck. It accelerated toward him, pulling alongside.

  Two dogs, along with two men, were in the truck bed. The driver rolled down his window.

  “You,” shouted the driver. “What are you doing?”

  “I have to report for work,” replied Jing Yo, still pumping his legs. There were houses on both sides of the road; if necessary, he could run behind them.

  How could he lose the dogs?

  “Where do you work?” asked the driver.

  Before Jing Yo could answer, one of the men in the rear of truck yelled at him, asking if he had seen a paratrooper.

  Jing Yo’s Vietnamese was very good; he had trained for the mission inside the country, working with a tutor for months. But his vocabulary wasn’t encyclopedic, and he didn’t recognize the Vietnamese word for paratrooper.

  “What?” he asked.

  “Soldiers. Did you see them?”

  “I don’t know,” said Jing Yo.

  “From the sky,” said the man.

  “An airplane?” Jing Yo asked.

  “Dumb peasant.”

  The driver pushed harder on the gas, starting to pull away. Jing Yo put his head down, pedaling. He heard the men in the back shout something over the barking dogs.

  The truck stopped abruptly.

  His path to the left was blocked by a cluster of houses, tightly packed together. Jumping the fence into the open field was a better bet, though it would leave him vulnerable as he climbed. And either way, he would lose his bike.

  “What kind of shoes are those?” yelled one of the men in the rear of the truck as he approached.

  Jing Yo stopped. “My shoes?”

  “Are you a deserter?”

  “Maybe you’re pilot of the fighter that was shot down,” said the other man in the back. They were holding their dogs tightly on a leash. The animals were large, foreign dogs, the type trained as watchdogs. He guessed that the men were part of some sort of militia, or perhaps policemen out of uniform.

  “Do I look like a pilot?” Jing Yo asked.

  Jing Yo put his foot on the pedal, and started to pass them. He looked straight ahead.

  The dogs’ barking intensified, then suddenly stopped.

  They had been released.

  There is a point of balance, in every man, in every situation. Stasis, a calm balance free from turmoil, internal and external. Jing Yo reached for that point, and found it in his mind.

  Then he attacked.

  The bike flew out from under him as the first dog grabbed at his pant leg. Jing Yo stomped the dog’s skull, crushing it. His maneuver left him vulnerable to the second dog, which jumped at him. Jing Yo raised his arms, barely catching the animal as it lunged. He rolled to his left, using the animal’s weight and momentum against it as he pinned it to the ground. His knee broke its rib cage.

  The animal yelped, snapping its teeth. Then it dropped its snout, helpless, dying, wheezing in pain.

  Jing Yo jumped to his feet. The two men in the back of the pickup truck were gaping at him, stunned. Jing Yo launched himself, flying into the two men, fists raised. He caught the first man in the throat but missed the second. Jing Yo turned, found the man, and kicked him in the chest, sending him against the window of the truck. He kicked him again in the face, then chopped his neck with the side of his hand.

  The man’s neck snapped.

  The other man had fallen to the ground under the force of Jing Yo’s initial blow. Jing Yo jumped on top of him, landing on his back. He kicked him over, then with his heel crushed the man’s esophagus, in effect strangling him.

  The truck lurched forward. Jing Yo threw himself into the bed. Scrambling to his knees, he grabbed one of the AK-47s as the driver screeched around the corner. Jing Yo put the gun to the rear window and pulled the trigger.

  The truck began to veer as the driver fell forward against the steering wheel, killed by Jing Yo’s shot. With the dead man’s foot still hard against the gas pedal, the truck veered sideways, then rushed off the pavement into the front yard of a small house.

  Jing Yo put his left hand on the cab roof and pushed off, managing to jump off the opposite side as the truck flipped and crashed into the house. He roll
ed on the ground, his senses momentarily gone.

  There was silence.

  A woman screamed. A child began to cry.

  Jing Yo jumped to his feet and began to run.

  ~ * ~

  By the time Jing Yo got to central Hanoi, it was nearly eight o’clock, and the city was wide awake. He’d had to duck only a single checkpoint, but his experience with the dogs and the pickup truck made him wary. He’d gotten rid of his boots, and while tempted to keep the AK-47 for protection, he’d ditched it as well. He looked like a Vietnamese student, in Western blue jeans, with cheap athletic shoes and a bulky sweatshirt to hide his pistol. His backpack bore the insignia of a Vietnamese company.

  It had been more than a year since Jing Yo had been in Hanoi. That visit had in no way prepared him for the city he saw now. Black smoke hung over the northern half, thickest above the airport and the area where the government and army had their official buildings. Jing Yo made his way to the banks of the Red River, walking in the direction of Phu Tan Port. Both the Chuong Dong Bridge and the Long Bien Bridge farther north had been destroyed. Burned-out shells of cars littered the roads near the water. Several small freighters had either been bombed or run aground, perhaps out of panic. The stern of the nearest vessel, a gasoline tanker blackened by the smoke of a fire, stood high above the water, its screw and rudder exposed like the genitals of an old, naked man.

  Jing Yo walked northward, his stoic expression mirrored in the faces of the people he passed. They, too, were on a mission. A woman was taking dried sweet potatoes home from the market, dinner for a week. A man in a clean suit strode through the dusty street toward work, his manner daring the grit to settle on him.

  Soldiers were posted at several of the intersections, but they took little notice of the clusters of people walking past. Jing Yo turned onto Hang Gai, one of the main roads north of the Tháp Rùa or Turtle Tower, the famous temple in the middle of Sword Lake in the center part of the city. There was a gaping hole in the row of buildings on the first street he turned down. He knew the area from his last stay, but couldn’t place the building that had been there.

  He walked slowly, trying to prod his memory. Whatever had been there was now a hole filled with debris. The house behind it leaned over, as if peeking downward. Stray rocks and bricks were strewn at the sides. A small pile lined the gutter on the far side.

  The theater. It had been a theater.

  The memory came full force. He saw himself sitting in the audience, enchanted by the show, completely taken by the strange dance onstage.

  Jing Yo pushed the memory away. It was an indulgence he couldn’t afford.

  He continued down the block, then turned into a street of old and cramped buildings.

  A strong odor hung in the air. Burnt metal and rotting flesh.

  Jing Yo found the building and knocked on the door.

  There was no answer. He knocked again. This time there was a rustle. Someone came to the door.

  “Who?” asked a voice, so softly he could barely hear.

  “Jing Yo.”

  The door opened. A woman about Jing Yo’s age, wearing a Western-style dress, her hair undone down her back, stood gaping.

  “Jing Yo?”

  “It has been a long time,” he told her as she collapsed into his arms.

  ~ * ~

  7

  Hanoi

  Josh studied his face in the mirror. The razor the SEAL had given him had removed about three-fourths of his week-old beard, leaving an uneven stubble covering his face.

  There wasn’t enough shaving cream for a second try. He lathered up the soap as best he could, and began scraping gently. Bits of hair poked up from the corners of his mouth like pimples erupting on a teenager’s face.

  His forehead was red, his nose blistered. His right eye drooped down, ringed by a deep, puffy bruise. He didn’t remember how he’d gotten it; it was simply one of the assorted minor injuries he’d suffered.

  Better this than dead, he thought. Much better.

  “Hey, kid, how’s it coming?” said Little Joe from the hallway. Little Joe—his full name was Ensign Riccardo Joseph Crabtree—had replaced Squeaky on guard duty while Josh slept.

  “I’m getting there,” said Josh.

  “You shaving?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Mind if I use the facilities? My stomach’s gonna explode.”

  “Yeah, yeah, come on in,” said Josh.

  There was only one commode in the washroom, open to the rest of the room. Josh threw water on his face and started to clear out to give the SEAL some privacy.

  “Where you goin’?” said Little Joe.

  “I’m not watching.”

  Little Joe had a chortling laugh, the sort of sound a pig might make while grinding food.

  “I don’t blame you. Take this.” He handed Josh his MP-5. “Don’t shoot yourself. I’ll be out in a second.”

  Josh took the submachine gun and went out into the hall.

  Josh had learned to hunt and handle guns as a young boy, but the submachine was a different sort of weapon. A rifle, a shotgun, even a pistol—all were tools for a certain kind of work, taking food. They were little different from the tractor his uncle used to plow the fields on their farm. You respected your rifle because it was a powerful tool, one that could easily get you into trouble if used improperly.

  The submachine gun was a tool, too, but its purpose had nothing to do with food. You killed with it. Not food, but other people.

  Kill or be killed. It wasn’t a theoretical or philosophical construct, not a scientific theory or hypothesis. Josh understood it completely, in his gut as well as his head—he’d just lived it. He’d witnessed the results of what happened when you didn’t or couldn’t defend yourself. And he’d managed to survive only at the expense of others.

  And yet, after all that, there was something about the idea of killing another human being that weighed greatly on him.

  As a scientist, he believed his mission was to help people. He studied the weather and its effect on biomes because he wanted to help humans deal with it. What other reason was there? Idle curiosity?

  “You need purpose in your work,” a professor had told him in college. It was back in his junior year, his Philosophy of Science class. Professor Van Garten. Considering that it was a science class, and that Van Garten was a biologist, the lectures veered very close to religion. “If science’s discoveries are not in service of mankind, what good are they?” Van Garten had said on the very first day.

  Van Garten was a realist; he’d spoken of the dark side of science— the atom bomb, mutations gone awry. But in the end, again and again, he maintained that science’s aim must overall be toward the good. He invoked Teilhard de Chardin—Catholic priest and philosopher—to imply that man’s innate nature was good, and that science, if true to that nature, would be good as well.

  But having seen what he’d seen in the jungle, Josh had to question whether that was really true.

  The old men and women massacred by the Chinese in the village: what did they know of man’s innate nature? What about the infants?

  Man’s nature was brutal, and ugly, and beyond redemption. What science could possibly redeem the acts of the killers?

  Kill or be killed? That wasn’t even in the equation. Kill for the sake of killing.

  But that wasn’t what he was about. Was it?

  “Smart thing, getting out of there,” said Little Joe, pulling open the door. “Whew.”

  The SEAL waved his hand in front of his face, smiling. His nickname was apt. Little Joe stood only about five four. He wasn’t particularly broad-shouldered, and while all SEALs exuded a certain toughness, he didn’t seem particularly threatening. Even when they’d been escaping under fire from the Chinese, he’d had the demeanor of a guy grabbing a beer at a keg party, the sort of guy who’d smile at you when you walked up, give you his plastic cup, and get himself another one.

  He’d also fed grenades into his grenade
launcher like they were M&M’s. He’d hung off the back of the van firing while a half dozen Chinese soldiers tried to perforate him, firing well over a hundred rounds into everything but his flesh.

  The easygoing smile and shrugs made the more lasting impression.

  “Jeez, you hold that like you know what you’re doing,” said Little Joe, pointing at the submachine gun. “Ya gonna give it back, or ya gonna make me wrestle ya for it?”