Edge of War - [Red Dragon Rising 02]

by Larry Bond

  He just wanted to get the whole damn thing over with. He just wanted to go home.

  Where was that, though?

  The Midwest, where he’d grown up. Where his parents had been murdered.

  God, how dark his life had been.

  He thought about Mạ. He was really looking forward to seeing her, though he still had a lot of doubts about whether she should talk or not.

  God, she’d had just as horrible a childhood as he had.

  But he’d overcome it. Or at least dealt with it.

  She would, too.

  Josh took a quick shower—the only kind possible—then got dressed. Broome was outside once again, reading his newspaper. He had a cup of Starbucks coffee waiting for Josh.

  “Figured you’d like a shot of joe,” said the marshal, handing it to him. “Sleep okay?”

  “Like a baby, thanks.”

  “Babies sleep like crap,” said Broome. “At least mine did. Mara’s downstairs, with that guy Jablonski. Just went down. They were going to wait for a while before waking you up.”

  “Aren’t they nice?” said Josh sarcastically.

  ~ * ~

  “There’s the prince,” said Jablonski when Josh and Broome entered the lobby. “Ready for breakfast?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I think you ought to get dressed for the presentation,” said Mara. “The schedule’s going to be tight.”

  “What schedule?” said Josh.

  “We’re going to meet the senator at eleven ten at the New York Hall of Science in Queens,” said Jablonski. “Then we’re going to come back to Manhattan and meet the president before his speech. He wants to go over a few things with you.”

  Josh looked at Mara. She was wearing a dark black skirt that fell to her knees, with a matching jacket.

  “You look nice,” he told her.

  “Thank you. Mr. Jablonski picked it out.”

  Josh felt a slight twinge of jealousy.

  “No, actually my wife,” said Jablonski. “Very professional looking.”

  “I’m with the State Department,” she told Josh, winking. “Public relations.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Well, let’s get you ready,” said Jablonski, taking Josh’s elbow and steering him toward the elevator. “Let’s run through your speech, and there’re a couple of things I want to tell you about the senator. First of all, he has an ego the size of Mount Rushmore. Never interrupt him. And never answer your cell phone or text a message while he’s talking.”

  “I don’t have a phone.”

  “That’s a start,” said Jablonski.

  “So basically, this guy thinks he’s God,” said Mara.

  “No, he thinks he’s a senator,” said Jablonski. “That’s a whole rung higher than God.”

  ~ * ~

  24

  Long Island, New York

  Jing Yo turned, off the Long Island Expressway, following the GPS’s directions toward the high school in Jericho where Senator Grasso was to appear at 9 a.m. He had more than two hours to get into position, and he drove slowly, looking around, trying to memorize everything he saw, comparing it to what he’d seen the night before.

  It’d be easiest to take the scientist here. There was a parking lot right across the street where Jing Yo could park and watch. Once he identified his car, the rest would be easy. He could take him then or, more likely, get him when he returned from the building. If he was with the senator, so much the better.

  The problem was, Jing Yo didn’t know if the scientist was going to be here. The senator’s schedule noted that a meeting was supposed to be arranged to talk to an expert “prior to UN.”

  “TBA” was the annotation.

  TBA. Jing Yo had had to look the abbreviation up on the Web. “To be announced,” it said. Or “to be arranged.” So the appointment was still tentative.

  If he had to kill him at the UN, he would have to use his bare hands. The bookmarked references made it clear that security would be very tight, even for employees. Jing Yo’s passes would take him pretty much anywhere he wanted to go, but even a diplomat could not bring a gun into the building.

  The school, on the other hand, would be easy. It was not yet in session, but there were already teachers and other staff members inside. A pair of policemen stood at the front, looking bored.

  Jing Yo swung through the parking lot and went back onto the street, continuing to a second minimall a few hundred yards away. He pulled in and took out his laptop.

  The senator’s schedule had been updated. The meeting with the scientist was now on it, an addendum beneath the entry to the senator’s second appointment of the morning, an 11 a.m. presentation at the New York Hall of Science, where the senator was being thanked for obtaining a federal grant.

  CHINA/VIET BRF—J. MACARTHUR— 11:10

  Jing Yo put the laptop into sleep mode, then backed out of the parking space.

  “New York Hall of Science,” he told the GPS, even though he thought he could remember the way.

  ~ * ~

  25

  Washington, D.C.

  One of the perks of being president was never having to wait at an airline gate for the flight to leave. Air Force One was always ready when you were ready.

  On the other hand, getting to the airport could be a major hassle, especially when you couldn’t just hop aboard Marine One. Even stripped to its essentials, the presidential motorcade made the process a bit cumbersome—though at least it didn’t have to stop for traffic lights.

  But this morning’s trip through the Washington suburbs was President Greene’s fault, a direct result not just of his decision to take the little girl to New York with him, but of his opinion that Mạ should be allowed to sleep as late as she wanted. So rather than having Turner Cole take her to the air base and meet them there, Greene decided he would stop off at Cole’s house and take her himself.

  Cole’s house was, in fact, very close to the airport, which calmed the Secret Service objections about the arrangements, at least to the point where the agents didn’t protest for too long when Greene told them in the morning that they were making an unscheduled stop. In his short time in office, Greene had made a habit of overruling his bodyguards. To hear them tell it, he had already vetoed their arrangements and advice more than any three of his predecessors.

  It might very well he true. Having survived a shooting war, not to mention Washington itself, he knew a thing or two about risk taking.

  Picking up Mạ himself, Greene decided, would give him the chance of talking to her alone for a while in the car. He needed to build a rapport. It wouldn’t be tough; he was a great grandfather. All his grandkids said so.

  The limos stopped in front of the brick colonial. Secret Service agents were already spread out on the lawn. The front door was open; Turner Cole stood centered in it.

  Greene got out. He was going to do this right—this child was going to see exactly how grandfatherly he could be.

  Hell, maybe they’d take in an amusement park over the weekend. It had been ages since he’d been on a roller coaster. He loved those damn things.

  “Mr. President, very good to see you this morning,” said Cole as Greene strode up the walk.

  “Turner. So, where’s my little girl?”

  “She’s upstairs, sir. Uh . . .”

  Greene didn’t like the sound of that “uh.” “Out with it, Cole,” he snapped.

  “Sir—”

  “You might want to get in the residence,” suggested one of the nearby Secret Service agents.

  Greene stepped inside.

  “Mạ is upstairs,” said Cole, still mispronouncing the name. “She, uh, she’s a little resistant.”

  The translator and the psychologist, along with a CIA officer, two federal marshals, and some of the Secret Service detail, were standing in the living room. Cole’s wife had taken the children to school. A nurse was upstairs with Mạ.

  “All right, the president wants the entire story,” said
Greene, addressing the small crowd. “And he wants it unvarnished. This is a no-bullshit zone. Out with it.”

  “Well, the psychologist seems to feel that reliving the—going back over what happened to her family would be traumatic at this point,” said Cole when no one else would speak. His tone was reluctant in the extreme.

  “It’s no more traumatic than what happened to her in the first place,” said Greene.

  He looked at the psychologist, a kind of dorky-looking type with unkempt hair and blue jeans.

  “You’re the psychiatrist, right?” said Greene.

  “Child psychologist, sir.”

  “Whatever. What’s the problem?”

  “Reliving the trauma, at this point—”

  “She’s not reliving it. She’s telling the world about it. She’s saving her people.”

  “Damn it,” cursed Greene, “sometimes individuals have to make sacrifices for the better good.”

  “She’s already made a hell of a sacrifice,” said the psychologist. “With respect.”

  “Maybe we could tape her talking,” said Cole. “Not bringing her in front of all those people.”

  “Where is she?” demanded Greene. “Upstairs?” He started for the steps. “I want to talk to her. Myself. Now.”

  The retinue paraded up the stairs. Cole had given Mạ her own room, sandwiched between the master bedroom and his oldest daughter’s.

  “Everybody but the translator stay out,” said Greene. “You, too, Frankenstein,” he joked to the Secret Service agent next to him. “No offense, but you’ll scare the kid.”

  “Sir, I—”

  “If I can’t handle a seven-year-old, this country is in serious trouble,” said Greene.

  The nurse, who’d been sitting in a rocker, jumped to her feet as Greene came in. Mạ remained sitting on the floor, in front of scattering of wooden blocks, Legos, and a toy kitchen set. She had an airplane in her hands. She looked up at Greene with a puzzled expression when he came in.

  “Josh?” she said.

  “Josh had to go do some important work,” said Greene, sitting down next to her. As he listened to the translator explain, Greene realized she wasn’t going to understand, no matter what words he used.

  “Nice airplane,” he told her, pointing.

  She handed it to him. It happened to be an F-4 Phantom.

  “Thank you. I used to fly one of these. The stories I could tell.” He circled it around the air, ducking and diving, making airplane noises.

  Mạ tucked her elbows against her ribs, apprehensive.

  “You saw these from the other direction, huh?” said Greene, suddenly realizing that she was scared of the plane. He stopped flying it and handed it back to her. She took it, then threw it angrily against the wall.

  “Bad plane, huh?” said Greene.

  The Vietnamese words came back to him as the translator spoke.

  “Demon plane,” they meant specifically.

  He remembered those words very well.

  And then more came back. Everything.

  “Tên tôi lá George,” he told the girl in Vietnamese. “My name is George. And you are Mạ.”

  “Yes,” she told him. ‘

  “Terrible things happened to you,” he continued in Vietnamese, stumbling a little, as he was at the limit of his vocabulary. But the translator didn’t interrupt. “I am very sorry.”

  She stared at him.

  “Tôi không biet tiêng Viêt,” he said. “I don’t speak Vietnamese very well. I was in your country long ago. During a war. Another war.”

  He glanced at the translator, who nodded. He’d gotten the words right.

  “War is terrible,” continued Greene. “We have to stop it. You can help.”

  “Josh?”

  “He’s helping,” said Greene, resorting to English. “Will you help us?”

  Mạ looked at him, her eyes wide. She looked like a child on a poster they used as public service announcements against child abuse. The posters had adorable kids, with two-word captions.

  Protect me.

  It was impossible to protect everyone in the world. As president, he had to protect the most people he could. If he thought too much about individuals, he’d never be able to do his job.

  And yet, he did have to protect individuals. Little girls and boys, if he could.

  They used to plan the bombing missions over the north meticulously to avoid civilian deaths. It always pained him that critics of the war didn’t realize that. They didn’t appreciate the dangers the pilots subjected themselves to, just to lessen the chances that the inaccurate bombs of the day wouldn’t hurt people like Mạ.

  Bad things did happen. That was the nature of war. That was why you did what he was doing, trying to head bigger conflicts off.

  Mạ began speaking in Vietnamese. She had tears in her eyes.

  “She will help,” said the translator.

  Greene rose. “We’ll do it without you, honey,” he said. “Your friend Josh should be able to pull it off. We won’t hurt you again.”

  Greene looked at the translator. “You don’t have to translate that. Tell her she’s a brave little girl, and she’ll see her friend Josh very soon.”

  ~ * ~

  28

  New York City

  “They came in the middle of the night. I found out later they were Chinese commandos. They snuck into the camp while I’d gone off into the woods to relieve myself. The next thing I knew, there was gunfire. The entire scientific expedition—the UN’s expedition—was slaughtered. All in their sleep. The bodies were buried, and the site was wiped out.

  “A day later, as I wandered ... as I moved around the jungle, trying to find my way back to the highway leading to Hanoi, I saw ... I came to a village. It was deserted. Well, I thought it was deserted. There was a field above the village. It looked freshly plowed. Then . . . but when I put my foot into the ground I realized it was, that it had been dug up. I saw something on the surface. I pushed the dirt away with my hands.

  “It was a body. Buried. It belonged to a woman. Young, maybe a teenager. She’d been shot in the head. And there were more bodies beneath her. I couldn’t take it. I got sick.

  “Later, I think it was that day or maybe the next, I found a little girl. Her whole village ...”

  Josh stopped speaking. He felt light-headed; his tongue felt as if it were stuck to the roof of his mouth.

  “That’s good,” said Jablonski. “That’s perfect. You can just stop there and let it go. The video will be playing. It’s perfect.”

  The bastard thought it was a performance. People dead, butchered in their sleep, and he looked at it like a goddamn performance. Points for his political bullshit.

  “It’s okay, Josh,” said Mara, touching his elbow. “It’s all right.”

  They were sitting in an empty section of the hotel restaurant, reserved by Jablonski so they could talk without being bothered. The hotel had provided a buffet breakfast, but Josh hadn’t bothered with any of it, except for the coffee.

  He got up, anxious, angry, feeling as if he was part of something he really didn’t want to be part of. He walked to the serving table, took a new cup from the tray, and pushed it under the spigot of the silver pot. The ornate handle squeaked as he pushed it forward. The coffee sputtered, then streamed out, steam escaping with the liquid.

  “I know this is hard for you,” said Mara behind him. “You did everything you could. You’re doing everything you can now.”

  “That’s not the point,” said Josh.

  Jablonski was still at the table, concentrating on his food and pretending not to hear. Josh tilted his head, then walked over near the door, wanting Mara to follow. He pushed out into the hall, frowning at Broome before walking down to a pair of upholstered chairs sitting by themselves in a small alcove. He sat down. Mara remained standing.

  “What’s up, Josh?”

  “I just—the whole thing. It’s kinda, it’s like a production.”

&nb
sp; “Of course it’s a production. This is a huge event. Millions of people’s lives are involved.”

  “It’s not an event. It’s not a show. It’s a war.”

  “I used the wrong word,” she said quickly. “We have to save people. China is going to run over Vietnam if something isn’t done.”