by Larry Bond
“One thing you have to learn, kid, is keep your strength up.” Kerfer nursed his beer. “Your body’s a furnace. Keep it hot.”
“Isn’t that how I got sick? Eating stuff?”
“You just ate the wrong stuff. Besides, who cares how you got sick? You work on getting better. War is an endurance race,” added Kerfer. “It’s a marathon. You’re a scientist. You ought to know this shit.”
“I have allergies. I can’t eat certain things.”
“Like burgers?”
“Burgers I can eat.”
“Then you’re good. What kind of allergies?” Kerfer asked. “Like hay fever?”
“Yeah. It has to do with the enzymes. They’re the same as in the pollen. I can’t eat apples. Nuts.”
“Beer?”
“Beer I’m okay with.”
Kerfer went over to the minifridge.
“You have your choice of a Foster’s that looks like it’s been in the fridge since Saigon belonged to the French, or a Tsing Tao. Chinese beer. Foster’s is a can,” added Kerfer, “Tsing Tao is a bottle.”
“Bottle.”
“Reasonable choice.” Kerfer took it out.
“Doesn’t seem to twist off,” said Josh, after nearly tearing his hand on it.
“Gimme.”
Josh handed it over. He wouldn’t have been surprised if the SEAL had used his teeth to rip the top off. But his solution was much more elegant, not to mention dentally hygienic — he placed the cap against his belt buckle and popped it off.
“You’ll feel better in a few,” said Kerfer, handing it over.
Josh took a small sip. The cold liquid was bitter in his mouth.
Mạ was sleeping on the couch. Kerfer had put a blanket over her.
“Wish I could sleep like that,” said Josh.
“You do. You just don’t realize it,” said Kerfer. He pulled over the chair and leaned back. “You like being a scientist?”
“Scientist? Yeah.”
“Why?”
“Always find something new.”
“About the weather?”
“About how plants interact with it. And how we interact with plants.”
“We eat them.”
“If there are any.”
“Plenty of plants, kid.”
“Not really. That’s what this war is about.”
“It’s about oil, kid. You notice how cheap gas is here compared to anywhere else? Hell, you can fill up a car with less than a hundred bucks.”
“The government subsidizes it.”
“Sure, because they’re Commies. But the reason they can do that is they have the oil fields offshore. You know what gas goes for back in the States. You think we could subsidize it?”
“No. But we’re not Communists.”
“Not yet,” said Kerfer.
“Really, it is about food,” said Josh. “China’s in a drought. Their crop production has been cut in half each year over the past three. That’s a huge amount of rice.”
“And?”
“Vietnam is getting two and three crops a year.”
“That’s because of the weather?”
“Partly. And changes in the seeds and the way they grow. That’s what the war’s about. Food.”
There was a knock on the door. Kerfer went over, pistol out. “Yeah?”
“It’s Mara. Let me in.”
He cracked the door open, peeking into the hallway before letting her in.
“What are you doing with a beer?” demanded Mara as soon as she saw Josh. “You’re supposed to be sick.”
“Don’t go schoolmarm on the poor kid, for Christ’s sake,” said Kerfer. “He’s trying to get better.”
“What is that, SEAL medicine?”
Kerfer smiled. But Mara remained cross.
“They told me downstairs the prescription came,” said Mara.
“Little Joe brought it up,” said Josh.
“Let me see the pills.”
“Man, you are a schoolmarm,” said Kerfer.
Josh handed over the bottle.
“They’re some sort of penicillin thing,” said Kerfer. “I checked them. You think I’m going to let him take poison?”
“You have him drinking beer.”
“It’s good for him.”
Mara rolled her eyes. “Put the beer down. We have to go for a walk,” she told Josh. “Do you feel up to it?”
“I can walk.”
“What’s up?” asked Kerfer.
Mara pointed to her mouth. Josh guessed that she was reminding them that the room might be bugged. Then she pulled the headset out of her collar, indicating she’d have the radio on. Meanwhile, Josh pulled on his shoes.
Stevens and Little Joe were sitting in the lobby when Josh and Mara came down. The SEALs shadowed them out of the hotel, staying a few yards back as they crossed the street.
Night had fallen, and most if not all of the buildings in the city were observing the blackout rules. But with a clear sky, there was enough light to see through the trees to the river. A few people walked along the sidewalks, passing them quickly, heads down. But as they walked northward, Josh spotted groups of people gathered near the riverbank, talking among themselves, or occasionally staring at the water. A few young couples held hands.
“Let’s go back the other way,” said Mara. “There are more people than before.”
They turned around and went back, walking past a naval ship tied up at the dock. Mara took his hand, wrapping her fingers in his. Then she leaned toward him.
“Are you okay?” she whispered.
“Yeah.”
“You’re slowing down.”
“I’m okay.”
“I want a spot where it’s not easy to hear us,” she said. “All right?”
“Okay.”
“You have to talk to my boss. Peter. Is that all right?”
“Sure.”
Mara guided him through the trees to a cluster of rocks on the shoreline. As soon as they sat down, she took out her phone. Josh leaned back, elbows against a rock, trying to look at ease.
He definitely felt a little better than he had earlier. Maybe Kerfer was right about the beer.
A small fishing boat moved across the river in their direction. As it drew near, a woman pushed out from under the canvas tent at the middle of the boat and went to the prow. She had something in her hand, and Josh felt a moment of anxiety, worried that she might have a gun. But it was just a line; she was getting ready to tie up at the dock about thirty yards to his right.
“Peter wants to talk to you,” said Mara, handing Josh the satellite phone.
“Yes?”
“Josh, how are you?” said Peter Lucas.
“I’m okay,” Josh told him. “A little tired.”
“I’ve heard what’s on the video, the files you gave Mara. It’s incredible,” said the CIA officer. “Everything.”
“I hope it can help.”
“It will help,” said Lucas. “I have someone here who’d like to speak to you. All right?”
“Sure, I guess.”
The phone clicked. A new voice came on, a little louder and clearer.
“Josh MacArthur?”
“I’m here.”
“This is George Greene. Are our people taking care of you?”
“Mr. President? President Greene?”
“I’m here. Are you getting good care?”
“Yes. She’s, they’re — I’m doing fine.”
“Good. I heard what happened. It’s a terrible tragedy. Horrible.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You have pictures and video?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Can you tell me where you got them?”
“Um, well, I had this little Flip 5 video camera. It’s not very good quality, but it’s good for snapshots and little videos.”
“Where were you when you took the video, Josh?” asked the president.
“I don’t — see, that’s our base camp. But the
others… I had to go through this village. I don’t know how far away I went.”
“But it was definitely in Vietnam?”
“Yes, sir. We were pretty far from the border. I mean, a couple of miles. You know — I don’t know. Five?” Josh felt he was making a fool of himself by being so tongue-tied. He closed his eyes, trying to concentrate. “It was definitely inside Vietnam. I went — that night, I think it was, I found the border to the north. I was always in Vietnam. There was a big fence. And guards. And then these trucks came down. They looked like Vietnamese trucks but — ”
“Was there resistance at the science camp?” asked the president.
“No, sir. Well — I started to sneeze and I woke, and I had, uh, I had to uh, uh — ”
“Nature called,” said the president drily.
“Yes, sir. Anyway, I walked away from the camp, and then I was sneezing and I wanted not to wake anyone. So I went a little deeper into the jungle. The next thing I knew there was gunfire.”
“The scientists didn’t have guns, did they?”
“No, sir. Not that I know of. We had a couple of Vietnamese soldiers with us, but they’d gone to bed.”
There was a pause. For a second, Josh thought the line had gone dead.
“Josh, we’re looking forward to talking to you when you get back,” said Peter Lucas, coming back on the line. “All right?”
“Yeah, of course.”
“You’re going to be home real soon. Please give me Mara.”
“Okay. Uh, thanks.”
“No, thank you.”
7
Aboard USS McCampbell, South China Sea
Dauntless in Battle.
A nice phrase, surely; the perfect motto for a warship. But they were just words until put to the test.
Commander Dirk “Hurricane” Silas thought about his ship’s motto as he strode across the bridge, casting a wary eye on the helmsman and the long row of controls and instruments necessary for her to do her job. Like all members of his family — including and especially the nine-thousand-ton guided-missile destroyer that held them — the petty officer was dedicated and squared away. Her eyes were focused, her hair very neatly trimmed.
Silas stopped and peered forward through the destroyer’s bridge windows, into the dark, vast emptiness before him. To all appearances, the McCampbell was alone on the ocean, alone in the universe, a solitary ship making close to thirty knots, a hair off its listed top speed.
But appearances were deceiving. A Chinese cruiser and frigate were just beyond the horizon to his right, shadowing his course. The cruiser was one of the most accomplished vessels in the Chinese fleet, aside from the country’s two recently completed aircraft carriers. Commissioned as the Wen Jiabao and named after a recently deceased premier, it was an extensively refitted Ukrainian ship, the Moskva, sold to China ostensibly as scrap two years before. At 186 meters long and nearly 21 meters at beam, it was a good bit bigger than the McCampbell. The Wen carried at least sixteen long-range P-500 Bazalts, known to NATO as SS-N-12s, antiship cruise missiles with a range of roughly 550 kilometers or about 340 miles.
The weapons posed a formidable challenge, easily capable of sinking most ships. But the McCampbell’s Aegis system had been specifically designed to handle this sort of threat. Like her sister Arleigh Burkes, she could put three or four SM2 Block IV missiles into the air against each P-500 in less than a minute. It would be a serious workout, but one the DDG could probably handle.
Silas would love to see it try.
He stepped out of the enclosed bridge onto the deck. There was something about standing here, high above the waves, that still seemed magical some twenty years after his first “real” ocean voyage. It was more than the physical sensation of the wind and the light, salt-mixed spray in the air. Silas felt a link to the men he’d grown up reading about, the old captains and seadogs who put themselves on the line, warriors whose every breath seemed to inspire heroic deeds.
Looking back on the stories from the perspective of an adult, he knew that they had glossed over many things — hardships for one, failures for another. No man facing the sea was always courageous, and no one facing an enemy’s gun could claim that his stomach didn’t occasionally hint of mutiny. But the omissions were unimportant; on the whole, those stories told a greater truth about human nature than a meticulously accurate log ever could.
Or at least what Silas thought human nature should be.
Unfortunately, the days of heroes were gone. The Navy wasn’t anything like it had been during the cold war, let alone back in the days when the crisp crack of a sail filling with wind told a sailor all he needed to know about the weather. The idea that a single captain and crew could take destiny into their own hands was a quaint, even forlorn notion. The McCampbell was connected to the rest of the world by a suite of communications systems and sensors. Silas’s commander could look at a screen and know instantly where the destroyer was.
So could half the Pentagon.
The day was not far off, the captain believed, when the Tomahawks and enhanced Standard missiles in his vertical launching tubes would be fired by some desk admiral in the basement of the Pentagon.
“Captain, you have a minute?”
Silas turned and saw his executive officer, Lieutenant Commander Dorothy Li.
“Sneaking up on me, Exec?”
“No, sir.”
Silas sensed trouble in Li’s voice. She wasn’t usually half this formal with him.
“Shoot,” he told her.
“Captain, as I understand our orders, we’re to proceed toward Cam Ranh Bay, staying in international waters. Correct?”
“You know the orders as well as I do.”
“Permission to speak freely.”
“Hell, Dorie, you don’t have to be so formal. What’s up?”
“Back channel on this is not that good.” She shook her head. The stiff tone remained in her voice, and it was obvious she was choosing her words very carefully. “Desron’s passing along orders, but flashing stop signs everywhere. Dirk, I think we’re being set up for something political.”
Desron referred to the destroyer squadron the McCampbell was assigned to. Li had spent considerable time working under the squadron’s commander before joining the McCampbell as its new executive officer four months ago. Silas had no doubt that she was able to hear things that he wasn’t — that was pretty much her job description as the ship’s second in command.
“All right. So tell me. What exactly is the back channel?” Silas asked.
“Well.” Li paused and looked behind her, making sure there were no other sailors within earshot. “A lot of people think the president is itching for a war. The Chinese have announced a blockade of Vietnam. Our orders are basically to test it.”
“That’s not in the orders.”
“No, not in so many words. But the words that are there add up to that.”
Silas turned to starboard. “You see that over there, Dorie?”
“I don’t see anything.”
“There are two Chinese ships over there, shadowing us.”
“I realize that.”
“A few hundred miles farther north, they have a carrier task force.”
“Uh-huh.”
“The captains on those ships know that we know they’re there. But they haven’t attacked us. You know why?”
“Because we’re not at war.”
“Because they know if they try to attack us, we’ll sink them both. It’s about force, Dor. They know we’re stronger than they are. That’s why they don’t attack. That’s the reason we sail to Cam Ranh. And beyond if we have to.”
“I’m missing you, Cap. I don’t get the logic.”
“We have to show them we’re not afraid. Or a year from now, maybe six months, they won’t hesitate to attack us. And then there’ll be real problems.”
8
Ho Chi Minh City
Jing Yo was not surprised that the American would go to the Dong K
hoi district, the downtown area that contained not only most of the large foreign hotels, but also the most familiar tourist landmarks. It was an area that would have the most foreigners, and make it harder to spot him.
The traffic was extremely light, and until Jing Yo left Cholon he saw few police officers or soldiers on the streets. Near the river the number of policemen multiplied exponentially. Several streets were blocked off. When Jing Yo reached Nguyen Thi Minh Khai — one of the main thoroughfares through the district — he was stopped by a roadblock.
“Why are you out driving?” demanded the policeman who stopped his scooter. “You should be home.”
“I’m going to work,” said Jing Yo. “My wife said the same thing.”
“Where do you work?”
“Bun Cha Hanoi,” he said, naming a famous restaurant in the area.
“I am sure the restaurant is closed,” said the policeman, but he waved Jing Yo through without even bothering to look at his papers.
The area Mr. Tong had directed him to was over a mile long, and without more information it would be extremely difficult to locate the scientist. Jing Yo decided he would cruise along the waterfront, not so much in hopes of finding him but so that he was likely to be nearby when Tong called with more information.
He got less than halfway before meeting another roadblock. A pair of army trucks had been parked across Ben Chuong Duong, the main road running near the water. Here there was no possibility of being let through, so Jing Yo turned back westward, found a place to park, then set out on foot.
He’d gone a block when his phone rang.
“He is near Bach Dang Jetty,” said Mr. Tong. “They are still talking.”
Jing Yo resisted the urge to run. He was already walking in the right direction, just three blocks from the jetty itself.
Jing Yo walked across Ben Chuong Duong, normally choked with traffic at this hour. Small groups of Vietnamese were standing on the opposite side, clustered around the park that ran along the riverfront. There were more in the park itself, close to the water, almost as if they were gathering for a performance or some entertainment — fireworks, perhaps. Jing Yo caught bits of their conversation as he passed. They gossiped not about the war or the danger they were in, but about trivial matters — work, an in-law’s boorish manners.