by Larry Bond
His cousin had recently turned over the ground of what they called the house garden behind the barn, ready to plant some of the early vegetables. The small garden was separate from the actual farming operation. It was a full acre, elaborately laid out and carefully tended by hand. In a few months’ time, it would be filled with tomatoes and cucumbers and melons, several different kinds of lettuce, and huge, long green beans that Josh remembered from his childhood as veritable swords.
The farm had been in the family for generations, through good and bad times. Mostly, they’d grown wheat and soybeans, though a good portion of the land supported dairy cows for a while, and forty acres had been devoted to corn, supposedly since the days of the Indians.
It was on the farm that Josh had first become interested in how things worked together, how different plants thrived under different conditions, and it was in the house garden that his interest was piqued. Some of the varieties they grew had been passed down for several generations. Among the prize vegetables was a particularly squat but juicy striped tomato that bore no resemblance to anything Josh had seen anywhere else.
Josh was not a farmer, for many reasons. But he did love to stand in the middle of a farm, close enough to the barn to feel its smell, or near to the machines, or out in the middle of fields that seemed to go on forever.
This was the American core, at least as he knew it. Ironically, while the rest of the world was sinking fast into depression, agriculture in America was booming. The climate pressures were helping.
Temporarily, and in select places; much of the southeast was facing a severe drought, which Josh knew would only get worse. It was a slow-motion disaster, which meant there was still some time to deal with it.
Ironically, that made people less likely to face the problem. As he’d seen in China.
Josh shook his head. The rest of the world was not his concern. War was not his problem. He was a scientist, and his job was science. The war would end. Science would not.
He kicked another clump of dirt.
Josh left the garden and walked up the little hill where they had gone sleigh-riding as a kid. He wondered if his cousins still did that.
His parents had died not far from here, in a massacre that the newspapers had compared to the much more famous In Cold Blood crimes. He could almost see where the house had been from the hill.
He could see it, actually, if he looked hard enough. But he didn’t.
He could see it even more clearly if he closed his eyes and thought about that day. But that he never did.
Josh headed back for the house. It would be good to go back to work soon, but where exactly would he go? He was still on a stipend from the UN Climate Catch program. He had to talk to them, see what they wanted him to do.
He smelled the strong scent of coffee a good twenty paces from the back door. He went into the kitchen, where his cousin’s wife, Debra, was just cleaning up.
“There you are, Josh. Fresh coffee’s up.”
“Thanks.” He went to the cupboard and took out a large mug. When he was little, the farm had belonged to his grandfather. With the exception of the appliances and TV sets, very little had changed. The kitchen stove, a massive eight-burner, two-oven behemoth, was so old it had to be lit by hand.
“How long’s your friend staying?” Debra asked.
“I, uh . . . I don’t know. He’s supposed to be protecting me.”
“There are a lot of crazies out there,” said Debra.
Josh wondered if she was worried about her kids. She didn’t seem to be.
“I can talk to him and find out.”
“It’s no bother,” she said cheerfully. “Jim might put him to work.”
“Might not be a bad idea.”
“I have some errands in town this morning. Want to come?”
“Nah, I’m just going to take it easy if that’s okay.”
“That’s good.” She smiled at him and disappeared to get her things.
The morning paper sat on the kitchen table. Josh folded it over and pushed it aside.
“Good morning,” said Tex, coming into the kitchen.
“Morning. There’s coffee.”
“Thanks.” The marshal went over to it. “Sleep well?”
“Passably.”
The marshal filled his cup. He took three sugars.
“You leaving today?” Josh asked.
“Uh . . . I’m supposed to hang around for a few more days. We have a couple of more agents coming out.”
“More?”
“We usually work in shifts. Can’t be too careful.”
“You really think it’s necessary? I’m old news.”
Tex grimaced slightly, then sat down with his coffee.
“Deb’s on her way out,” Josh told him. “If you’re hungry, there’s plenty of food.”
“Some eggs, maybe.”
Tex looked at him—he seemed to be expecting that Josh would make them.
“I’m not much of a cook,” said Josh finally. “There’s a pan under that cabinet there.”
“Yeah, yeah, no—I’m, uh . . . do they mind?”
“They won’t mind.”
Tex went to the refrigerator and looked inside. He took out two eggs and some butter.
“Damn, I forgot to tell you last night: Mara called. She wanted you to call her back.”
“Oh, okay.”
Josh felt bad about just leaving her like that, but really it was the best way. A clean break. He felt too ... if he hadn’t just left, he’d probably never leave her, like a puppy pining for a master it couldn’t have.
“I got the number on my phone,” said Tex. “You want it?”
“When you get a chance,” said Josh, getting up to refill his coffee. “Later’s fine.”
“Okay.” The marshal looked at him for a moment, then turned back to the stove. “How do you get these burners on, you think?”
~ * ~
10
Hanoi
Major Chaū was waiting in the hotel lobby when Zeus got there.
“General Trung was hoping you could give us guidance on the antitanks weapons,” said Chaū. “After you have rested.”
“Let’s go now,” said Zeus.
~ * ~
The Chinese had devoted a Group Army to the attack in the northeast. Roughly the equivalent of a western army corps, this amounted to four divisions on paper, potentially a little more than 46,000 troops. But so far only about a quarter of the force, if that, had made it into Vietnam.
The intelligence data showed that only one armored regiment— eighty tanks—had crossed the border. About a third of the tanks had been kept near Tien Yen to deal with the counterattack there. The rest were stalled along Route 18 between Tien Yen and the bridges Tri’s men had destroyed. Elements of two infantry divisions had gone south with the armor, but most of the soldiers were either in Tien Yen or farther north. Though mechanized, these soldiers would be severely hampered by the storm for at least the next twenty-four hours.
A shipment of Russian AT-14s was expected soon. General Tri wanted to take the weapons and use them against the tanks. But Zeus had a different idea: hit the infantry coming to support them instead.
“The tanks will be ready for an attack,” he explained. “And they’re not going anywhere. You can keep pounding them with artillery.” There was a shortage of armored-piercing shells, Tri’s logistics officer explained. They were trying to get more to the front, but there was no guarantee that they would be successful.
“You have to find them,” said Zeus finally. “And anyway, you’re not getting AT-14s to take out all of those tanks. You’re going to have to leverage what you got.”
Zeus’s idea of leverage was to strike the mechanized infantry as it came south in its APCs, striking from the east rather than the west. He wanted the Vietnamese to organize themselves into three-man teams that would set up multiple ambushes. The Chinese commander was conservative, and would be even more so after having had his nose bloodied with the tan
ks. He’d be bound to slow down his offensive.
That would give Tri time to stiffen his defenses. He could bring the rest of his tanks down from Tien Yen. If more Russian munitions arrived, they could take on the tanks.
The idea was to slow the Chinese assault in the east for a week. It would take them that long to maneuver the rest of their Group Army— and perhaps bring a second one to reinforce the attack.
“Delaying them is useful,” said Trung, speaking for the first time. “But it is not a substitute for victory.”
“No,” said Zeus. “The idea is to stop their offensive completely. To do that, you have to do something very bold.”
“And what is that?” asked Trung.
“Attack China.”
~ * ~
China had obviously prepared for an offensive war. They had made their calculations and moves, and while there were still some big mysteries— Zeus still wondered why they hadn’t attacked in the Lang Son area, for example—the overall shape of their strategy was clear: basically they were going to roll over Vietnam.
Since Vietnam couldn’t really prevent that, the only way to upend that strategy was to get China to reevaluate it. And the only way that was going to happen was if China saw a threat to their own homeland.
“Hit Nanning with your mobilized division, and the war will grind down to a stalemate,” said Zeus. “The Chinese will panic and pull back. Look at the satellite photos—there’s nothing in their way. You get through the border defenses, and you have a clear drive. It’s a hundred and twenty miles; you’ll be there inside a day. Maybe two.”
Trung appeared stunned. He looked at each of his commanders in turn, then at Zeus.
“The major has a provocative idea. It will be discussed. In the meantime, we will arrange for the strikes against the mechanized infantry, as you suggested. If time can be bought, it will be useful. Major, I am told the missiles are to arrive at Hanoi Airport within the hour. Can you retrieve them and instruct the men in their use?”
“My pleasure,” said Zeus.
~ * ~
The plane was a C-130 that belonged to the Philippines army, an old “slick” as the Air Force might have called it. It landed fast on the Hanoi runway, bouncing hard on the fresh patches covering the results of earlier Chinese bombing raids.
Zeus waited near the terminal building as the plane came across the long cement apron. The storm had passed to the north, leaving humid, heavy air and a light wind in its wake.
The aircraft pirouetted around and the rear ramp slowly lowered. The pilots clearly weren’t being paid by the hour.
Zeus turned to Major Chaū. “Have two of the crates carried into the hangar so I can check the Weapons,” he told him. “Pick them from the middle. In the meantime, load everything into the Ilyushin as fast as you can. These guys are going to want to get out of here real quick.”
Zeus gestured toward the propeller-driven cargo plane sitting in the drizzle a few yards from the hangar. The Ilyushin IL-14 was a Thai commercial cargo carrier that had had the misfortune of landing in Hanoi just a few hours before the war began. Grounded during the first air raid, it had been commandeered by the Vietnamese military; it was about to be used on its first mission, delivering the antitank missiles to General Tri’s men.
Watching from the hangar, Zeus saw a tall, athletic figure dressed entirely in black amble down the ramp. It was too dark to get a good view of who it was, yet the figure was familiar.
“Ah for Christ’s sake, it is a small goddamn world,” said the man, his voice loud enough to carry over the whine of the engines and the howl of the wind. “Let’s see—you are Major Murphy. No relation to the infamous maker of the universal law governing how often shit rolls down in my face.”
Zeus held out his hand to Ric Kerfer, the SEAL officer he’d met helping Josh MacArthur escape from Vietnam some days earlier.
“You got the money?” Kerfer sneered, looking at the hand.
“Money? I thought it was all paid for.”
“It is, Major. I’m janking your chain. What the hell are you still doing in this shithole of a country, huh?”
“My duty.”
Kerfer laughed. “You’re outta your fuckin’ mind.”
“Is everything here?” Zeus asked.
“How the hell do I know? You think they tell me?” Kerfer walked into the hangar. The large expanse was lit by dim red lights. “Yeah, yeah—it’s all here. Ninety-six AT-14Es. All with HEAT warheads. Bang-bang. What are you thinking of doing with these?”
“Blowing up some APCs,” said Zeus.
“You know you gotta get pretty close.” Kerfer’s voice was suddenly all business. That was the way he was, Zeus knew—a cynical, screw-the-world type until things got serious. Then he was the one man you wanted watching your back. “Even with a personnel carrier. You’re not going after tanks?”
“Not if we can help it.”
“That’s good. Because these things ain’t as powerful as they claim. They’ll go through some tanks. Chinese X99s?” Kerfer shrugged. “Fifty-fifty.”
“I know they work,” Zeus told him.
“You’ve used them before?”
“Once.”
Kerfer scoffed.
“And you’ve shot them a lot?” retorted Zeus.
“More than you. Shit. Once.”
Kerfer looked at the Vietnamese soldiers carrying in the two boxes for Zeus to examine. They were men in their fifties and sixties, and they strained mightily to get them inside.
“These aren’t the guys using them, I hope,” said Kerfer.
“No. We’re taking them east.”
He gestured toward the plane. Kerfer looked over.
“Fuckin’ plane is older than you. Older than me,” said Kerfer. “What the hell is it? A DC-3?”
“No. It’s Russian.”
“Fuckin’ Russians. They’re makin’ a mint on this war.” He looked at Zeus. “Tell you what, Major. Why don’t you tell me what the plan is, and I’ll shoot holes in it for you. Before the Chinese do.”
~ * ~
Actually, Kerfer was surprised at the plan, because while not necessarily the most innovative in the world, it wasn’t half bad for a blanket hugger. Leaving the tanks alone made some sense, and not just because he personally doubted the effectiveness of the Russian weapons. The Chinese would be expecting the attack there, and would undoubtedly be better prepared than the infantry supposedly running to its rescue.
But there were two big problems with Zeus’s strategy. First of all, getting the teams into place to use the weapons wasn’t exactly a gimme— the forces were currently southwest of the Chinese troops; Zeus wanted them northeast.
More important, the Vietnamese soldiers hadn’t been trained to use the weapons.
“The ragheads used these weapons against M1s in Iraq,” Kerfer explained. “They worked at night, mostly, and they had night goggles, the whole deal. Supposedly, they trained for years. What I heard is that most of the weapons were fired by Russian mercenaries who knew what they were doing. Which we ain’t got.”
“I don’t think these weapons are hard to handle at all,” said Zeus. He hadn’t heard that mercenaries were involved, and doubted it. “They’re point and shoot.”
“They’re point, shoot, and shit,” said Kerfer. “You have to sit there and keep your sight on the target. The missile follows a laser. So you have to keep beaming the bad guy. Even when they shoot at you. You need a clear sight, straight line to the target. You need balls to use it right.”
“They got them. I’ve seen them work basically suicide attacks without flinching.”
“Hmmmph.”
“Listen, it’s their best shot,” said Zeus. “I agree with you against the tanks. But I think they can take on the APCs. The armor’s a lot lighter.”
He walked over to the pile of crates. They were made of wood, and had Russian lettering on them.
“Says ‘kitchen utensils,’ “ said Kerfer. For once he wasn’t jokin
g.
“You check them out?”
“You think the ‘S’ in SEALs stands for stupid? Of course I looked at them. They’re all there.”
Zeus wanted to see anyway. He went over to the side of the hangar to look for a crowbar. By the time he came back, Kerfer had already pried open the crate using a combat knife. The missiles were packed into large cases that looked like oversized suitcases made of aluminum and plastic. Kerfer laid one on the floor.