by Larry Bond
“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 rolled 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?”
Josh handed the weapon over.
“You all packed? Ready to go?” asked Little Joe.
“I don’t have much,” said Josh.
“Travel light, right?” Little Joe gave one of his chortles. “Let’s go then. We gotta meet the spook lady.”
Josh followed the SEAL through the hall toward the back of the building. They came out in a narrow alley. Another SEAL, Eric Wright, was there with a pickup truck they’d commandeered.
Mạ was sitting next to him, sucking her thumb. She opened her mouth wide as Josh slid in, then threw herself on him.
“Hey, I’m happy to see you, too,” he told her. “How are ya?”
Mạ didn’t understand what he said; she spoke only Vietnamese.
“She’s a doll,” said Eric. “Cute kid.”
“Been through hell,” said Little Joe, squeezing in on the other side of Josh. Mạ sat on Josh’s lap, giving them all room.
“Where’d you get the truck?” Josh asked. It was a two-door Toyota, maybe a year old.
“Nice wheels, huh?” said Little Joe. “Not even a dent.”
“Where’d you get it?” asked Josh, trying to make conversation.
“Rental lot,” said Eric.
“How much is a rental here?”
“Cheap,” Little Joe chortled. “We paid with SEAL.”
“Call it an exchange,” said Eric. “We took the truck, and, in exchange, we didn’t blow nothin’ up.”
As they drove out of the alley onto the main street, both men became silent, watching their surroundings. Little Joe was still smiling, but his eyes were darting.
“Patrol up there,” he said. “Two guys on the deuce.”
“Yeah,” grunted Eric.
Technically, the truck they’d spotted wasn’t a deuce-and-a-half, military slang for a two-and-a-half-ton transport used by the army to haul men and supplies. But the description was close enough: the vehicle was a troop truck with a canvas back, similar in purpose if not exact detail. Ironically, the vehicle was made by China, which before the war had done a fair amount of trade with Vietnam.
“Sniper up on that building,” said Eric.
Little Joe leaned forward to look as they passed. “Just guarding something,” he said. “Just watching. Not a sniper.”
“You know what the hell I mean, man.”
“Well then say it.”
“Hey, fuck you. He’s a sniper, all right?”
“Watch the language. We got a kid.”
“Sorry.”
“What’s he going to snipe at?”
“The rabble.”
Little Joe laughed. “They have these guys in the city to show the people they’re safe,” he told Josh. “It’s psychological. They don’t want panic.”
“That’s bull,” said Eric. “They’re looking for SEALs. And spies. And Santa Claus, ‘cause they know he comes by rooftop.”
“Don’t listen to him,” said Little Joe. “He’s nuts. He flunked colors in kindergarten.”
“Look who’s talking,” said Eric. “Don’t listen to him, kid. He can’t find his dick in a bathroom. Stick with me. I’ll give you the straight story.”
“Hey — watch it for the kid.”
“Sorry.”
The two SEALs traded put-downs — without any more four-letter words — as they wended their way through the capital. The streets were far less crowded than they had been two weeks before, when Josh was here with the expedition team, gathering supplies and preparing to go into the jungle.
And yet, the destruction he saw was less than he would have expected.
“I’m amazed there’s so many buildings still standing,” he said.
“Don’t let that fool you,” said Little Joe. “Airport’s pretty much leveled, and a lot of the important government buildings are wiped out.”
“Takes a lot to steamroll a city,” added Eric. “But they’re working on it.”
“Come back next week,” said Little Joe. “City’ll be one big pile of rubble.”
“Nah, they won’t waste the ammo,” said Eric. “Waste of time to blow everything up.”
“Chinese invented gunpowder. They like blowing sh — stuff up,
” he added, amending his language midstream because of Mạ.
“So do I, but I wouldn’t waste it on Hanoi.”
“That’s it,” said Little Joe, pointing to a brown brick building. “Shop’s around the back.”
Eric pulled over. Little Joe hopped out, pushing the door closed behind him. He eyed the street left and right, then motioned Josh out. He took Mạ by the hand and walked with her through the alley side by side to a blue door. It was a small restaurant. Mara was sitting at a table in the corner, speaking to a hollow-cheeked Vietnamese man. The man fidgeted almost violently, turning his head left and right and flailing his elbows almost as if they were wings and he was trying to take off. Mara looked up as they came in and glared at them.
“Here,” said Josh, realizing that she didn’t want them to interrupt. “Let’s take this table.”
Little Joe pulled out a chair and sat down, positioning himself so he could see the entire room. His back was to Mara and the man.
A woman came over. Josh had only enough Vietnamese to realize she was asking what they wanted.
“Cà phê sũa,” he said, asking for white coffee.
“Me, too,” said Little Joe, in English.
The woman glanced nervously at his submachine gun, which he’d put on his lap. Josh signaled with his fingers that they wanted two of the coffees.
“Milk for Mạ?” he said.
The woman said something in Vietnamese that he didn’t understand. Mạ answered.
“Okay, Joe?” asked the woman.
“Yup,” said Josh, who didn’t understand what she had ordered, but figured it would be okay.
“She tell us it was on the house?” asked Little Joe.
“I have no idea,” said Josh.
“You don’t know Vietnamese?”
“Not really. They taught some phrases and things, and we practiced a little, but when people talk real fast, I can’t get it,” Josh said. “The tones are tough — the same sound can mean a bunch of things, depending on how they inflect it.”
“Well that’s a bitch. We’ll have to take pot luck, huh?”
“I ordered white coffee. It’s coffee with milk.”