by Larry Bond
“What are you doing?” she snapped in Vietnamese.
Startled, the men turned around.
“Who are you?”
“Security for the prince,” she said, keeping the gun down against her leg. “What’s going on?”
“There are thieves in the hotel,” said one of the policemen. “There was a gunfight. We have them trapped in the staircase.”
“Are they thieves or assassins?” she demanded.
“Thieves in black broke into the hotel,” said one of the men. “Some police have come in. Reinforcements are on the way.”
“They’re after the prince,” said Mara. “We have to get him out.”
The security man closest to her started to say that help was only a few minutes away, but Mara cut him off. She couldn’t afford a conversation, and knew that if she gave them time to think—or even ask which prince she was talking about—she would be in trouble.
“Come,” she said, starting up. She took two steps, then stopped. “Are you coming?” she demanded.
Sheepishly, the men started up behind her. The staircase came up to a level of convention rooms on the third floor. Mara was now two floors below the SEALs and one floor below the closest group of Chinese.
“This way,” she said, pointing to the door.
Neither man moved.
“Squeaky, can you hear me?” said Mara over the radio.
“Yeah.”
“I’m two floors below you. I’m coming up a flight. Get the attention of whoever is below you. I’ll take them out.”
Gunfire rattled in the stairs. Mara put her shoulder to the door and pushed open. There were two shadows on the landing above.
She fired until she had no more bullets. The stairway filled with smoke and the acrid fumes of spent ammo. The policemen huddled below, unsure what to do.
“Clear!” she told Squeaky. “Kerfer?”
“Guys? On three ...”
The stairway exploded with gunfire as Kerfer began firing from above. With the Chinese sandwiched between them, the SEALs below him used the distraction to run up the steps. Within seconds, the two Chinese agents were sprawled in the staircase, dead.
“Kerfer?” said Mara.
“Coming, Mother.”
Mara trotted down the stairs, leaned out the door, and spotted the two policemen. “The prince is leaving,” she told them sternly. “Make sure the lobby is secure.”
~ * ~
17
Ho Chi Minh City
Jing Yo recognized the van, or more specifically its round window at the side. It was a Ford, relatively rare in Vietnam, a twin of the van he had seen at Ms. Hu’s. Or the same one.
“There are soldiers there, on the corner,” Jing Yo told Hyuen Bo, pointing to the truck whose gray sides grew black as the red fires behind them flickered in the night. “I’m going to move up the street, away from their view, then cross. I’ll get into the building from the back. You wait for me here.”
“They’ll ask why you’re at the hotel,” she said. “I should go with you—we’ll say we are looking for a place to stay. We can say our house burned down.”
It was a good idea. And it would keep her with him. Safer.
“All right. Come on,” said Jing Yo.
They walked back up the side street before crossing. Jing Yo took Hyuen Bo’s hand, tugging her gently as he started across the street.
His leg muscles stiffened as he reached the other side. He shrugged off the fatigue and started down the street, toward the van. As they approached, Jing Yo realized someone was sitting in the passenger seat.
Mr. Tong.
He must confront him. Fate had placed them together here. To ignore it was too dangerous.
“Stay here,” Jing Yo told Hyuen Bo, letting go of her hand.
Mr. Tong didn’t see him until he was only a few feet from the truck. Surprise flickered across his face, then resignation. He lowered the window as Jing Yo approached.
“Why are you here?” Jing Yo asked.
“You’re the one I should ask,” said Mr. Tong. “Why have you not apprehended your man?”
Jing Yo caught a glimpse of the pistol rising from Mr. Tong’s lap. He shot his arm forward, fist smashing into Mr. Tong’s jaw. The blow cracked his windpipe.
A second punch broke Mr. Tong’s nose. He started to fall forward in the seat.
A chop to the back of his neck killed him.
Jing Yo reached into the truck and took the gun.
So it was clear now. There was no room for questions or doubt.
There was a commotion around the corner, at the front of the hotel. Jing Yo unlocked the door and climbed into the van, pushing Mr. Tong’s limp body into the back. He slid into the driver’s seat. The keys were in the ignition.
A sawed-off shotgun sat in a holster next to the central console. Directly behind the passenger seat was a case with two rocket-propelled grenades, and a pair of submachine guns, along with a backpack filled with ammunition. There was a handgun and grenades as well.
Enough for a small army. Or one commando.
Hyuen Bo ran to the van and climbed into the passenger seat as Jing Yo started the engine. He drove up the block and back around, just in time to see half a dozen men running across the street to the park. The soldiers in the distance made no effort to stop them.
The men were taller than average Vietnamese were. One of them, Jing Yo knew, must be the scientist.
He continued down the block, driving slowly but steadily past the soldiers. He nodded at them, trusting—hoping, really—that the militia bandanna he was still wearing would spare any questions. Apparently it did; the soldiers didn’t say anything.
He was just turning up the street, back toward the heart of the city, when Hyuen Bo grabbed his hand.
“We can’t go back to the apartment,” she said.
“I know,” said Jing Yo.
“We should leave Saigon. There must be many ways out of the country.”
“I can’t just leave. I have a mission.”
“We should leave,” she said.
For the first time since he had returned, Jing Yo heard pleading in her voice. And pain. Great pain.
“Aren’t they trying to kill you?” she asked. “Wasn’t this the van of the people you went to see?”
Mr. Tong had tried to kill him. Jing Yo had to assume that Ms. Hu wanted him dead.
But that didn’t relieve him of his duty. He had let the scientist escape. He had to fulfill his obligations.
Beijing might know nothing of the plots here. And in any event, they were irrelevant.
“I’m sorry,” he told Hyuen Bo. “I must do my duty. Whatever the cost.”
They were silent for a moment.
“And then I will be free,” he added, though the words sounded false, even to him.
~ * ~
18
Ho Chi Minh City
Josh and Stevens waited with Mạ in a low clump of brush just south of the ferry station as the others ran across the road. The soldiers at the end of the block made no move to stop them.
“We’re all here,” said Kerfer, trotting over. They’d sustained a few cuts and bruises among them, but no serious injuries. “All right, next problem: Stevens, how we getting across?”
“The ferry will have lifeboats,” said Josh. “We can take them.”
“Smart,” said Kerfer, starting toward the building. “Must be why you’re a scientist.”
Josh picked up Mạ and followed as the team ran to the ferry house. Two of the vessels were tied up inside. The building and ships were deserted. There were two rafts tied to the side of the vessel above the main deck.
“Why don’t we just grab the whole ferry?” said Kerfer as Stevens and Little Joe climbed up to release the rafts. “We can sail it downriver.”
“Do you think we can get past the gunboat?” asked Mara.
“Why not? They’re not going to stop us if we look like we know what we’re doing.”
&nb
sp; “There’s probably an order against using the river,” said Mara.
“You just convinced two policemen you were protecting a prince,” said Kerfer. “You don’t think you can talk your way around a bunch of sailors?”
“Can you get the engines started?” Mara asked.
“Piece of cake.”
~ * ~
As Kerfer had predicted, the gunboat didn’t bother with them, apparently assuming that a craft as large and official as a ferry would not be moving without orders. Josh made a makeshift bed for Mạ in the passenger cabin. Mara joined Kerfer and Little Joe on the bridge as they guided the ferry into the river channel and moved southward. Kerfer took the wheel himself, smiling broadly as he steered downriver. There was enough light to make out the shoreline and the larger vessels along the way, but Kerfer posted his men as lookouts at the bow to watch for small boats or obstructions.
The ferry wasn’t particularly fast—eight knots looked like their top speed, even with the engines at full—but it was stable and big. If they had to get off it quickly, they could sail toward shore and swim for it.
Hopefully it wouldn’t come to that. Mara turned on the radio, listening for transmissions. There was a cacophony of military traffic, but none of it seemed to be coming from the river, and it didn’t appear that any was directed at them.
The sat phone rang—DeBiase, looking for an update.
The transmissions—that must be how the Chinese were tracking them.
Mara turned the radio off without answering.
A mile beyond the patrol boat they passed another naval ship that had been hit by a missile and was burning. A dozen smaller boats moved around it, some taking survivors to shore, others trying to put out the fire. An array of barges sat farther on, tied up in front of warehouses and wharfs filled with goods. Mara guessed that they would be the targets of the next wave of Chinese missiles.
A pair of junks and several small craft were tied together at the edge of the channel. Some had small lamps hung beneath the tentlike canvas sheltering the families and goods aboard. Others were completely dark. But there were people on all of them, watching silently as the ferry chugged along, one of the few craft moving on the river.
The river bent northward, then twisted back south toward Phu My Bridge.
“Missile boat, port side,” yelled Little Joe as they sailed toward the mouth to the Nha Be River.
The Vietnamese naval craft was protecting an oil refinery and storage area on the Nha Be. They stayed clear, heading southward, just barely clearing some rocks at the sharp corner of the peninsula.
The ferry’s radio came to life with a challenge.
Mara picked up the microphone.
“This is Sai Gon Ferry Two,” she said. “We have been ordered to report to Dong Hoa to take soldiers to reinforce the city.”
“We will speak to the captain,” said the voice on the radio.
“I am the captain,” said Mara.
“What is your name?”
“Speak to the general who sent me it you have questions,” said Mara. “Call central command.”
“What command?”
“Division command. I am not one to question orders,” she added. “If you think you can override a general, then do as you please.”
She snapped off the microphone and looked at Kerfer.
“Sounded bitchy to me.” Kerfer nodded. “They following us?”
She went across and stepped out onto the narrow deck that ran along the port side.
“They’re not moving,” she told him.
“Good.”
The Vietnamese ship didn’t have to follow to blow them up; a salvo of missiles would send them to the bottom in seconds. Mara climbed up the ladder that ran up topside to benches used by passengers on clear days. The river smelled like rotting fish, and she was sure that if she looked closely at the water, she would see plenty of beady eyes like those she’d seen in the storehouse-—the Saigon River was legendary for its swimming rats.
The missile boat was lost in shadows behind them, its ominous tubes and the gun at the bow blurring into the mass of blackness.
“How long before we get to Vung Tau?” asked Josh, coming up from below.
“A couple of hours,” said Mara.
“What happens there?”
“We find the airport, helicopter comes to rescue us. You anxious to get home?”
“I wouldn’t mind it.”
“Your parents are probably worried.”
“My parents ...” Josh’s voice trailed off. “My parents died when I was little. They, uh . . . It was a bizarre thing. Like a serial killer. Like In Cold Blood.”
“Oh.”
She wasn’t sure what to say. Finally, Josh filled the awkward silence.
“I was raised by my uncle and his family. They’re farmers.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah. They seem to be doing pretty well with the climate change. That’s The irony of it. Some places make out. Of course, who knows— a couple of years, their farm may be a desert.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, really. It’s funny: change the amount of rainfall just a few inches, one way or another—the effect can be tremendous. There are so many things in play. Look at Vietnam. This country is suddenly the most arable land in Asia. Those fields we’re passing—they were swamps two or three years ago. Now they’re industrial rice farms.”
“I’m not sure I’d eat the rice,” said Mara, thinking of the sewage smell in the river.
“You probably already have.”
“Looks like something’s following us,” said Little Joe, who was standing a few feet away, looking toward the stern. “One of those little mama-san boats.”
Mara walked aft. Little Joe gave her his night goggles, but Mara couldn’t quite make out what he was talking about. She increased the magnification to max but still couldn’t see anything that approximated a boat.
“How fast can those little boats go?”
“Mama-san boats? Eh, if they got a motor, couple of knots. Twelve tops.”
“What’s a mama-san boat?” asked Josh.
“Little craft they use to get around with. Sometimes people live in them and stuff,” said Little Joe. “Smaller than a junk. Narrow. Longer than a skiff. Mostly they push ‘em around with these long poles. But a lot of ‘em have engines.”
Mara went back to the bridge. Kerfer had already heard from Little Joe over the radio.
“Probably nothing,” he said.
“You don’t really think that, do you?” asked Mara.
Kerfer smiled, and turned his attention back to the river.
~ * ~
19
Nha Be River, south of Ho Chi Minh City
The ferry’s size made it easy to see, even in the dim light of the river, but the small motor on the side of the boat Jing Yo had stolen couldn’t drive them fast. They fell behind steadily, little by little, until at last Jing Yo couldn’t see them at all.
Where would they go?
Perhaps a safe house somewhere farther south. Or perhaps out to a boat waiting in the mouth of the river, at Soi Rap.
He had to think like his enemy if he was going to succeed. Jing Yo lowered his head, concentrating.
They were smart, and there were several of them. Half dozen at least.
Clever people. Worthy enemies, not the vulnerable prey he had assumed earlier.
His mistake. One he kept repeating.
The ferry would have been a spur-of-the-moment decision. Planning to take it would have been too difficult—too many contingencies. It had been an opportunity that presented itself.
And what did that tell him?
That they had a destination somewhere south. That it was far enough away to risk taking a large boat.
“We are coming close to shore!”
Jing Yo slid his hand on the tiller, taking them back toward the middle of the channel.
“I’m sorry,” he told Hyuen Bo.
She leaned back over the bow, keeping lookout.
Most likely, the scientist had come to Ho Chi Minh City to meet an airplane. When the airport had been bombed, he had changed his plans.