by Larry Bond
“If I hadn’t we’d be dead by now,” he told her, walking back to the car.
* * *
Mara let Squeaky drive as they pressed south. The patrols seemed almost nonexistent. DeBiase was cagey in his updates, not giving her exact information about what was going on. That made sense, of course: if she was captured, anything he told her would have to be considered forfeit to the Chinese. Knowing what the Americans knew and when they knew it would tell them quite a bit about the intelligence-gathering methods.
Josh was still sleeping in the middle seat of the truck next to her. He began mumbling to himself incoherently, humming almost, his teeth held close together.
Bad dream, probably. Maybe based on what he had seen behind the lines.
He’d told her very little of it. An entire village buried in a field. An arm poking up from the ground after the rain. His fellow scientists, murdered in their sleep. The body of child who’d crawled under a bed to hide after being wounded, then left there to die, its toy doll in its arms.
The sat phone rang. DeBiase with another update.
“Hey, darling, how are you?”
“I’m doing good, Million Dollar Man,” Mara answered. “How’s your hernia?”
“Ailing me greatly. You’re not making very good time.”
“We’re driving through a country that has a war on,” said Mara. “I didn’t know you had your stopwatch out.”
“Listen, the Chinese navy is gathering off the coast, south of Hainan Island. There’s big trouble brewing.”
“You told me that already.”
“This is big trouble. It looks like they have an invasion force getting ready.”
“When?”
“Can’t tell. But we want you home. Come on now,” he said, switching to his cheerleader voice. “Pick up your pace. Once you get below Hue, you’ll have free sailing. I have a plane lined up for you in Saigon.”
“There has to be an airstrip closer that we can get to,” Mara told him. “Come on.”
“Darlin’, I’ve been trying. But the best alternative I can do to Ho Chi Minh is a puddle jumper that can meet you near Cambodia. That’ll be twice as dangerous. The Chinese have complete air superiority, as you just saw.”
“And the pilot’s a drunk, right?”
“Could well be.”
It was an inside joke between them, a reference to a story DeBiase liked to tell of one of his own hairy escapes by plane, when the pilot had been so smashed that DeBiase had taken over the controls mid-flight. DeBiase, of course, had no clue what he was doing and just barely succeeded in keeping the plane moving in the right direction. Miraculously, the real pilot revived about ten minutes from the airfield where they were supposed to touch down, and landed the plane without a hitch. The story was probably largely apocryphal, like many a DeBiase tale, but it was told with such gusto that it deserved to be entirely true.
“If you start to get into trouble south of Hue,” added DeBiase, “we’ll consider asking the Vietnamese for help. The closer we are to Saigon, the harder it should be for the Chinese to interfere.”
“I don’t think asking the Vietnamese for help at this point is a good idea,” said Mara.
“Why not?”
“There have to be more spies in Saigon than in Hanoi,” she said.
“I’m sure there are. What else is up?” asked DeBiase. His voice had a subtle edge to it.
“We had some trouble on the train,” said Mara, deciding to come clean. “With the Vietnamese.”
“What kind of trouble?”
“The kind that got them killed.”
“That sounds like bad trouble,” said DeBiase.
“I don’t know that I’ve ever seen good trouble.”
“Well.” He paused. She knew he was considering whether to ask what had happened. “To make an omelet, eggs are often broken.”
“They are.”
“We won’t talk to the Vietnamese at all,” he said.
“Good.”
“But you get going. Things are falling apart there damn fast.”
20
Washington, D.C.
The thing that really frosted Greene was the fact that all of the senators he’d invited to lunch in the White House dining room were members of his own party. All had stood onstage with him this past November and proclaimed their undying support. They’d been the first on their feet in January to applaud at the inauguration.
And the first with their hands out the next day.
He didn’t have one vote among them to give aid to Vietnam. Maybe he had Leiber. Maybe. But even the Connecticut senator looked like he was a little beaten down. He sat at the far end of the table near the windows and the painting of Geronimo that Greene liked, hunched over a bowl of soup. He’d said less than two words the entire time.
“So obviously we’re here for a reason, Mr. President,” said Phillip Grasso, whom Greene had seated at his right hand. “You’re going to push us on China.”
“Damn right I’m going to push you on China,” said Greene.
“They’re taking over the world again, right?” Grasso turned and winked at the other senators.
“I wouldn’t underestimate their threat,” said Greene.
“I take China very seriously,” said Grasso. “I just don’t think we should go to war with them.”
“If we don’t stand up to them now, we will be at war with them eventually,” Greene told him. “That’s why I want to help Vietnam.”
“We can’t send arms,” said Senator Roosevelt, who despite his last name was not related to either president, either through blood or character. “People will view it as a hostile act.”
“And invading Vietnam was not?” said Greene in disbelief.
Everyone looked at their plates. Greene took a breath and tried to recalibrate.
“I think a good step here,” said Leiber, “would be to go to the UN and get sanctions. We can build a coalition. Like George Bush did during the first Gulf War. The first George Bush,” he added.
“No one takes the UN seriously,” said Grasso. “Besides, you don’t have the votes there. Frankly, I think I’d oppose sanctions myself. China is our biggest trading partner.”
Grasso headed the Armed Services Committee. If he wasn’t taking a hard stand against China, no one on his committee would. Not a single one.
Grasso was a guy who could tell which way popular opinion was running. He’d started out as a machinist in a small family-owned business, a “real blue-collar guy,” as the talking heads put it. He’d wandered into politics because the state wanted to take his backyard to expand a highway. He ended up on the town board, became a county party chairman, then a congressman and a real power in New York. He had numerous connections on both sides of the political aisle. And a long, long list of contributors.
Many of whom undoubtedly had Chinese connections.
Greene needed to persuade him.
“I am for sanctions,” said the president. “I’m going to push them personally in front of the UN. We’re raising a stink.”
“Why raise a stink when the Vietnamese started it?” asked Senator Jennifer Kraft. Kraft was the junior senator from Wisconsin, and until now, a vote Greene could generally count on.
“Maybe they didn’t start the war,” said Greene. “What would your reaction be then?”
“I’d need some very good proof that they didn’t.”
“We’ve seen footage from the Chinese,” said Grasso. “We’ve seen their satellite photos. Is there proof they’re lying?”
“If I have proof, that would change your mind?” asked Greene.
“I would consider it,” fudged Grasso. “Do you have proof?”
Greene did have proof — Josh MacArthur, and the little orphan girl he’d found. But he wasn’t ready to share that proof with anyone outside the administration. Even there, most didn’t know about it. The problem was that once he said something, especially here, it would get out, and the Chinese would find a
way to rebut it.
“We’re examining the situation,” Greene said.
“What’s ‘examining’ mean?” asked Kraft.
“Reviewing the intelligence. Let’s say we have proof — what then?”
“Convince the UN. Start with sanctions,” suggested Kraft. “Then you might be able to get some votes.”
You might get some votes — not we. Greene boiled inside. He had very little use for the UN. No use, in fact.
Yet he couldn’t go to war without the support of the American people. And their elected representatives.
“I am going to the UN,” he said. “You can count on that.” He looked around the table. “Could someone pass me the pepper? My chicken is a little bland.”
21
Vinh Province, Vietnam
Jing Yo stopped again to siphon gas, this time from a small farm not far from the road. Hyuen Bo had fallen asleep against his back, and nearly fell off when he stopped. Jing Yo left her with the scooter near the road and went alone to scout the yard.
A few years before, this would have been a rich farm for Vietnam, with several acres and several buildings. Now it was commonplace. He guessed that it would have a tractor and at least one car or motorbike, but he couldn’t find them. There were two sheds near the road. Neither had a vehicle. In one, he found a small fuel can, but it smelled of diesel or kerosene, and its fuel was too thick to be gasoline.
Jing Yo found a path that led back to the two small houses. It started to rain as he approached the nearer house. The small droplets felt good at first, but soon they started to fall faster and thicker, and it became harder to see.
A tractor was parked in a hollow next to the house. A motorcycle leaned against it. Jing Yo unscrewed the top to the motorcycle’s gas tank. There was gas almost to the brim. He pushed his hose in to fill his makeshift gas tank, then got another idea. He picked up the bike and backed it away from the house, walking with it to the spot where he’d left Hyuen Bo.
He didn’t see her or the scooter. A hole opened in his chest as he stood still, turning around slowly as he looked for her.
Perhaps it is good that she has left, he thought.
“I’m here,” she whispered. And his heart jumped.
“Across the road,” Hyuen Bo added. “I was afraid we could be seen.”
She pushed the bike out from around the brush where she’d been hiding.
“You found another bike?”
“Just for the gas,” said Jing Yo, changing his mind about taking it.
He didn’t want to be separated from her.
Not yet.
They rigged the hose, taking advantage of the different heights between the machines. The slope and the full tank of gas in the bike made it easy.
“Are you hungry?” Jing Yo asked when they finished.
“Why? Is there food?”
“There are houses. There’s bound to be something.”
“You shouldn’t take the food from the people,” said Hyuen Bo. “They probably have very little.”
“It’s a rich farm,” said Jing Yo. “A person with a farm this size would be very well off in China. If not for the drought.”
“Is that how you justify stealing?”
Jing Yo didn’t answer. He took the bike and pushed it back to its resting spot. He leaned it against the tractor just as the sat phone rang.
“We have found a transmission on the frequencies used by the CIA,” said a man whose voice he did not recognize. “There have been three transmissions in the past several hours, moving in a general direction south. The last was fifteen minutes ago, in southern Vinh Province. There have been no other transmissions from the American spies in the past two days.”
“Give me directions,” said Jing Yo.
* * *
The last signal had come from, a position barely thirty kilometers, or twenty miles, away. Jing Yo drove with new focus. It might be nothing — there was no way of knowing from the signal itself, and his informer had made no promises — but he was convinced that he was now on his quarry’s trail. And close to him.
Rain continued to fall steadily. The scooter’s small wheels slipped on the pavement, and he had to keep his speed down to roughly forty kilometers an hour. It was an exercise in patience.
He had learned to be patient in the monastery by spending whole days sitting outside the prayer hall, waiting for the monk he was assigned to accompany. During this phase of his training, the monks were completely unpredictable. They would arrive before morning prayer; they would not come until nightfall. This was all absolutely intentional — they had perceived in Jing Yo a weakness for action. They interpreted this as impetuousness, a vice. Not trained, the tendency could overcome careful thought. And so they had taught him to harness it, first by teaching patience, and then by instructing him in the physical skills of kung fu.
The rain made it harder to see in the distance, and Jing Yo nearly missed the intersection where he needed to turn. He braked a little too hard and the bike began to slide to its left. He let off on the brake, shifted his weight. It was all automatic; he had his balance before he could even open his mouth to warn Hyuen Bo. But the incident warned him against his wandering thoughts. He needed to concentrate and focus on what he was doing.
A truck blocked the highway about two miles later. Jing Yo slowed gently, easing the brake against the wheel. The truck was a civilian vehicle, and it was parked on a diagonal, nose facing south. As he came close, Jing saw that he could slip around on the left shoulder. As he did, two men came out from behind the truck. They had guns. He pushed down toward the handlebars and accelerated, trying to speed past.
One of the men lurched at them. He hit Hyuen Bo and spun the scooter into a skid.
Jing Yo fell away from the vehicle, tumbling across the pavement into the ditch beyond the shoulder. In the dark night with the rain he was momentarily blind, his bearings scrambled.
Caught by surprise, Hyuen Bo fell with the scooter, landing at the edge of the road.
“We will take your bike!” yelled one of the men. “We will take your money as well.”
“This one’s a girl,” said the man who had lurched at the scooter. “We’ll have her.”
“They’re both girls, I’ll bet,” said the other. “Put her in the truck while I get the other.”
Jing Yo scrambled to his feet.
“Come on and don’t make this hard,” said the other man, unsure in the darkness where Jing Yo was. “You’ll escape with your life, and be glad for it!”
Jing Yo’s eyes focused on the shadow, barely ten feet away on his right, up on the road. The man had a rifle in his hand.
“Come on,” said the man, who still hadn’t seen him. “Don’t make me shoot you!”
The man squared as if to fire, though it was clear from his aim that he didn’t know where Jing Yo was.
“You’d best shoot then,” said Jing Yo, taking a step and throwing himself feetfirst at the man.
The gun went off as they went down, a loud, violent rattle in the rain. Jing Yo landed square on the man’s chest, knocking him down. He sprang up, then went down into the man’s side, knee-first.
The man bashed his rifle against Jing Yo’s head, hitting him just above his eye. As he reared back to strike again, Jing Yo grabbed the gun and rolled forward with him, both men holding the rifle as they went down the embankment.
His enemy’s face pressed against his as Jing Yo fell beneath him. The man’s breath smelled of rotten fish. Jing Yo started to push to the left, trying to slip out from under him. The man raised his skull, then smashed it into Jing Yo’s forehead. Jing Yo hit him on the temple with his left fist. Still the man fought back, hitting him with another head butt.
Both were still holding the rifle between them. As long as they did that, neither would have an advantage. But to let go of the gun was to risk giving the other an insurmountable edge.
When his punches failed to move the man off him, Jing Yo grabbed the man’s hai
r and tried to pull him down. But his enemy’s bulk protected him, and he was able to push back and attack with another head smash.
I must take the risk, Jing Yo thought.
He pushed the rifle against his enemy’s chest. The sudden change in direction caught him off guard. As the man fell back, Jing Yo pitched his elbow and forearm up, smacking the rifle into the man’s face and striking his eye. The man winced, instinctively ducking back and loosening his grip on the gun.
That was all the advantage that Jing Yo needed. He tossed the rifle aside, and with his upper body free, his hands flew to the man’s head, his knee up into his groin. With one hard twist, the man’s neck was broken.
Jing Yo threw him to the side and scrambled for the gun.
The man’s accomplice was by the truck, shouting. Jing Yo grabbed the rifle, then threw himself flat, unsure where the other man was.
“Pean!” the man yelled to his companion. “Pean! What are you doing? Where are you?”
Jing Yo crawled up the side of the ditch, willing his eyes to focus. He saw two shadows near the cab of the truck. The man had Hyuen Bo.
“Pean!” he called again. “Where are you? Should I kill the girl?”
Jing Yo raised the rifle. He wasn’t sure when of the shadows was the man, which was Hyuen Bo.
She was behind the man, very close, held around the neck.
Ten yards. An easy shot.
Jing Yo pressed the trigger. The AK-47 clicked. It had run out of bullets.
“Pean!”
“Drop the girl and I’ll let you live,” said Jing Yo.
“Who are you?” yelled the man.
“Let go of the girl.”
Jing Yo heard her struggle. The man twisted around, pulling her in front of him.
“You think I’m a fool?” said the other man. “Where is Pean?”
“You’ll meet him soon enough if you don’t let her go.”
“Perhaps I’ll shoot her.”
“Then I’ll eat your heart while you’re still alive,” replied Jing Yo.
The man began edging toward the scooter. Jing Yo rose.