Edge of War - [Red Dragon Rising 02]

by Larry Bond

  A jet took off from the airport to the northeast. It was a commercial airliner.

  Business as usual, despite the war.

  “Navy,” said one of the marines.

  Zeus turned around. A Chinese patrol boat was approaching from behind. Unlike the destroyer he’d just seen, there seemed no doubt that it had spotted them. It was moving at a good clip, and a searchlight blinked on its deck.

  “They’re going to board us and look at our papers,” Zeus told the marine captain. “Can you deal with the Chinese?”

  “I will talk with them,” said Solt.

  It was the first complete sentence in English Zeus had heard from her mouth.

  “Are you sure?”

  “It is why I am here, Major.”

  “Get the bags in the nets and put them overboard,” Zeus told the captain. “Make sure the nets don’t break.”

  Zeus had two choices. One was to try to hide below. The other was to go over the side. The side seemed a better bet.

  He stripped off his shirt and pants, leaving just the wet suit, then lowered himself into the water, hanging on to the rubber tire that served as a bumper.

  Zeus’s teeth immediately started chattering. A head appeared over him, motioning. At first he wasn’t sure what the marine was trying to tell him. Then he heard the loud rumble of the patrol boat’s engines, and realized that the ship was cutting in front of them and he’d be exposed to view.

  He worked his way to the stern, moving under the platform at the fantail. Grabbing a line that hung off the boat, he wedged his feet against the hull, hoping to ease the strain on his arms.

  Not more than a minute later, he saw the Chinese navy ship passing them, turning to port as it circled before them.

  His boat’s engine suddenly started. Zeus pushed to the left, still holding the line but worried that he was going to be thrown into the propeller.

  “What are you doing?” he yelled.

  There was no answer from above, but the engine quickly dropped to idle. The short burst had sent the boat toward shore, angling it so that unless the Chinese patrol boat turned around again, it could only come up along its starboard side.

  “Here!” yelled one of the marines, warning Zeus that the patrol boat was nearly there.

  The marines could take the ship. There’d be thirty men aboard at the most. Catch them off guard, they’d be easy pickings.

  Too late for that now. Why hadn’t he thought of it earlier?

  The vessel put down a small utility boat. A minute later, Chinese sailors climbed aboard the stolen boat, yelling instructions to the marines. Zeus could hear Solt’s voice above the din of the patrol boat’s engines, yelling back at them in Chinese.

  He pushed closer to the hull. The bow of the patrol boat was just visible beyond the stern.

  The yelling got louder. Zeus took that as his cue to duck beneath the waves. He closed his eyes and held his breath for as long as possible. Finally, his lungs about to burst, he surfaced, took a gulp of air, a second one, then ducked back down.

  The second time he came up, he saw a hand over the side, waving.

  He ducked back down quickly, and stayed until the pain in his lungs had spread to his mouth and nose, and his chest felt as if it would implode. He put his head up and took another breath.

  The boat jerked forward. Zeus reached for the line, but couldn’t find it. He started to swim for the tire on the side, but after two strokes he realized it was too late; the boat was moving too fast.

  Just as the patrol boat’s bow came into view, two marines ran to the stern of Zeus’s boat and jumped into the water near him, splashing and hooting. Solt stood above, yelling in Chinese for them to act their age.

  The Chinese sailors on the patrol boat waved and shouted at them.

  One of the marines grabbed hold of Zeus. “Okay,” said the marine. “It okay.”

  “Okay,” replied Zeus. “Okay.”

  Back aboard the fishing boat a few minutes later, Zeus thanked the marine captain for sending the marines in.

  “Not my idea,” he said. “Ms. Solt’s.”

  “Thanks,” Zeus told her.

  “The Chinese were surprised there were so many men aboard,” she told him. “I told them they were relatives, and had to earn their keep. But they were not fishermen, and most of the time they were lazing around, or swimming. Then I sent them into the water when I realized the boat would see you.”

  “I thought you didn’t speak much English,” said Zeus. “It sounds pretty good to me.”

  Solt shrugged.

  “You know, you got a hell of a bruise on your forehead,” said Zeus. “Are you okay?”

  “I said before, I’m fine.”

  “Are your ribs okay?”

  “Eh?”

  “Your side.”

  “You want me to take my shirt off?” She shook her head. “No. Not so easy.”

  “I’m not trying to see your tits,” said Zeus. “Come on. Let’s see your ribs.”

  Solt hesitated. Slowly, she put her hand on her shirt and rolled up the side.

  “God, that looks like hell,” said Zeus. He put his finger on the large purple blotch. Solt winced.

  “It’s got to be broken,” he told her. “How far up does it hurt?”

  She shook her head. He eased his finger up. Two of the bones seemed to have snapped; she must be in terrific pain.

  “Do they have morphine or something like that in their med kits?” he asked her.

  “If I take that, my head will be cloudy,” she told him. “I am fine.”

  “It’s got to be killing you.”

  “I am grateful for your saving my life,” she said.

  “Yeah, but that’s not what we’re talking about now. Can you cough?”

  “Cough?”

  “Yeah. What happens with those is your lungs get screwed up. Cough for me.”

  Solt coughed. Even puzzled, she looked beautiful.

  “All right. Can you breathe okay? Big breaths.”

  She was breathing fine. So it was just a question of managing pain.

  “If you won’t take morphine, at least take some aspirin,” he told her. “Your head will be clear.”

  “I took some earlier. I am not a fool for pain.”

  He smiled at the expression; it seemed pretty poetic.

  “Why haven’t you been speaking English?” Zeus asked.

  “I had nothing to say.”

  “Mr. Quach says you don’t speak it at all.”

  “He said I do not speak it well.”

  “Sounds pretty good to me.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You afraid of him? Your boss?”

  Solt frowned, but said nothing.

  Zeus went and changed in the forward cabin. When he emerged, he found Solt and the marine captain standing at the stern, arms folded, worried looks on their faces.

  “What’s going on?” Zeus asked.

  Solt pointed to the patrol boat, which was about a half mile away.

  “They boarded Quach’s boat,” she said. “They’ve been there a long time.”

  “How many sailors were on the patrol boat?” Zeus asked.

  “Eighteen,” said the marine captain.

  “They are working with small crews,” said Solt. “They have trouble feeding their sailors. The ones who came aboard were skinny. And they asked about food. We gave them some rice we had.”

  “How many went aboard the fishing boat?”

  Neither the captain nor Solt had seen. Six had come aboard theirs.

  “We can take it,” said Zeus. “If we go now.”

  ~ * ~

  The two keys to the operation were speed and taking out the Chinese patrol boat’s radio.

  That task was assigned to the marine crouched just aft of the cabin, holding his RPG launcher below the gunwale. He had to strike the radio mast dead-on, preferably without taking apart the bridge below.

  The Chinese were either so focused on Christian’s fish
ing boat or so shorthanded that they didn’t bother posting lookouts on the stern or port side of their ship. It wasn’t until Zeus and the marines were ten yards away that someone emerged from the superstructure aft of the bridge and turned in their direction, spotting them.

  The timing was nearly perfect.

  “Fire!” yelled Zeus. “Board them!”

  The grenade hit the antenna mount and exploded. A second grenade struck the forward gun mount, shattering the side armor, killing the gunner stationed there and destroying the gun mechanism as well.

  The boat crashed into the side of the Chinese patrol craft. Zeus stumbled to his knees as he leapt across, his balance upset by the rocking waves. He got up, fixed his grip on his AK-47, then glanced to his right to make sure the rear gunner’s station was still unmanned. With that clear, he left it for Solt to take the gun as planned and started forward.

  The machine gun on the starboard side had already been secured by one of the Vietnamese marines, who was using it to pepper the Chinese boarding party. Zeus ran past to the ladder, thinking he was trailing the main boarding party. But instead he ran into three Chinese sailors. Two bursts from his AK-47 took them down. Then something pushed him to the deck, hard—the air shock from an explosion.

  He rolled up in time to see the Chinese captain and his helmsman running past him, trying to escape. Zeus cut both of them down, his bullets hitting them in the legs and dropping them like the teeth of a chainsaw gnawing saplings in the woods.

  Inside the bridge, he went to the control board and made sure the ship’s engines were still on idle. Then he went back out to the deck, passing the marine who’d been assigned to secure the bridge.

  “Keep us close,” said Zeus.

  Down on deck, the marines were pulling out bodies from the cabins directly below the bridge. Zeus looked over at Christian’s fishing boat. The marines there had taken out their weapons. Two Chinese sailors were on the deck near the wheelhouse, their hands high.

  “Christian? Win? You all right?” yelled Zeus.

  Christian and Quach came out of the wheelhouse. Zeus went over to help them aboard.

  “You all right?” Zeus asked.

  “I’m good, I’m good,” said Christian, who looked more than a little shaken up.

  “Very risky thing,” said Quach. “But thank you.”

  “It looked like things were getting out of control over here,” Zeus told him. “What happened?”

  “They found one of the bags,” said Christian. “Quach told them we’d fished it from the water. I don’t think they were buying it.”

  “Did they radio that in?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Quach went up to the bridge to check on the radio. Solt was already there. With the radio out, they couldn’t be certain that the Chinese hadn’t broadcast for help; they hadn’t heard anything on their radios, but there was always a chance they had missed it.

  Only one marine had been injured in the takeover; he’d fallen and broken his arm. Zeus took charge of immobilizing it with a splint and fashioning a sling. When he finished, he came out on deck just in time to see Quach take a pistol and hold it to the head of the one of the two Chinese prisoners. Before Zeus could say anything, both men were dead.

  “Why the hell did you do that?” yelled Christian, clambering up from the fishing boat where he’d gone for his gear. “Those men were prisoners.”

  “They were liabilities,” said Quach calmly. “We can’t keep them. And we can’t take them back to Vietnam. They’d do the same to us.”

  “Damn,” said Christian.

  He looked at Zeus. The truth was, Quach was right, as unpleasant as that was to face.

  “Let’s get everything together,” said Zeus. “We have a long way to go.”

  ~ * ~

  20

  New York City

  Josh stood at the edge of the airstrip, the helicopter poised in midair behind him. His AK-47 was out of bullets. Kerfer and the other SEALs were in the grass somewhere, down.

  He was all alone, surrounded by Chinese soldiers. He kept firing at them, but they didn’t die. They were like zombies, standing in the field, on the runway. The wash of the helicopter’s blades swirled dust around him. He turned, just in time to see the chopper taking off.

  Then he woke.

  It was five past five.

  Josh jumped out of bed and took a shower, finishing just as the water began to turn off. There was a small coffeemaker with a package of pre-measured grounds on the bathroom counter. He poured in a cup of water and turned it on.

  The coffee surged through the machine while he got dressed. The first sip was terrible; the second, worse. He left the room, determined to find something better.

  Broome was out in the hall, sitting on a chair and leaning against the wall.

  “You’re back,” Josh told him.

  “Like a bad penny,” said the marshal. “So whatcha doin’?”

  “I need some real coffee.”

  “Me, too. Hey—mind if I use the john? I gotta pee bad.”

  Josh let him in. At least he didn’t smell like Mexican food this morning.

  They found a coffee place down the block. Broome groused about the high prices—eight dollars for a medium cup of coffee. Five years before, it had been two, and even that was considered outrageous.

  “No wonder there’s so many people in the streets,” he said as they walked back to the hotel. “Coffee bankrupted them. Look at this— they’re two deep over there. And you need guards all over the place. And New York ain’t even that bad,” continued the marshal. “You should see Atlanta. L.A. L.A. is a pit. It was never that good to begin with.”

  “You think there’s going to be a war?” Josh asked.

  “How’s that?”

  “With China going into Vietnam?”

  “Nah. They’re just kicking their butts around for a bit. That’s not a real war.”

  “You don’t think we’ll be involved?”

  “Nah. Besides,” added Broome, “who the hell cares about China and Vietnam? Let them do what they want. It don’t affect us.”

  “Yeah,” said Josh.

  ~ * ~

  Josh found breakfast with Jablonski nearly unbearable. The food itself, served in the back room of a fancy restaurant about a block from the hotel, was excellent. But the work was tedious. The speechwriter had him go over the same points several times, each time telling him to say less and less. Josh resisted, but only to a point. He was so tired of hearing himself that he wanted to cut it short as well.

  “So what’s the president going to do with this?” Josh asked finally.

  “He wants a resolution condemning China.”

  “And then what? Do we intervene?”

  “Maybe,” said Jablonski cautiously. He glanced at Mara, who’d been sitting silently through the entire session. “What do you think about that, Josh?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “The Chinese want to take over Asia, Josh,” said Mara. She leaned across the table. “You’ve seen how ruthless they are.”

  “I don’t know if they want to take over all Asia.”

  She shook her head. “They do.”

  “Kerfer thinks it’s just for the oil.”

  “Kerfer’s wrong. You said so yourself.”

  “Maybe I was wrong.”

  “I think we probably all need a little bit of a break,” said Jablonski. “I have more phone calls. I’m still trying to nail down the senator.”

  “Why don’t we do some sightseeing?” suggested Mara. “How about the Statue of Liberty?”

  “What about Central Park?” said Josh. “I just want to walk.”

  “We can do that.”

  ~ * ~

  The last time Mara had been to New York, there was no charge to go into Central Park. Now it was five dollars. The sign said that it was a “requested donation,” but everything about the entrance suggested it was mandatory, with elaborate pay booths and policemen watchin
g the large chain-link gate topped with barbed wire.