by Larry Bond
The noise had settled into a vague hum, a low buzz in the distance. Zeus wished he had gone farther along the road; they were farther away from the noise than he’d thought.
“What’s that?” said Christian, pointing to their right.
Zeus stared through the trees.
“The posts? You see it?”
Zeus didn’t at first. Finally he saw something a little greener than the rest.
“It’s a bridge. There’s another road there,” he said. “Bigger than what we were on.”
“Should we take it?” asked Christian. “It’ll be easier to walk.”
“Even more dangerous than the dirt road.”
“Yeah. Okay. You think you can find it on your map?”
Almost certainly not, thought Zeus, but he tried anyway, unfolding the map and staring at it for a while. It was too dark to see it without putting it right up to his eyes. And even that was futile. The roads over the Chinese border were just narrow red squiggles.
“I don’t know,” said Zeus finally. “Come on.”
They moved slowly toward the underbrush. The sound seemed to move away from them.
They stopped for a rest after a few minutes. Christian was wheezing.
“You all right?” Zeus asked.
“Let’s just keep going.”
A few minutes later, Zeus heard the sound of a truck approaching. Instinctively, he dropped to his knees and turned toward it. It was on the hard-paved road to the right.
It was moving slowly northward. A troop truck.
Maybe bringing dinner to pickets or sentries farther north. He could smell something, a fire, food.
Zeus took a half step toward it, thinking he would hail the driver, but then stopped. He had to be sure it was Vietnamese.
They waited until they couldn’t hear the truck anymore. Then they started again, walking southward steadily. Finally Zeus saw something through the leaves—a building, and wire. He stopped, crouching next to a tree, as much for support as cover.
“That’s either a Vietnamese,” he told Christian, “or a Chinese border post.”
“Well, which is it?”
“Which do you want?” Zeus sidled to his left, trying to get a better view.
“Whichever is closer to my bed.”
The complex ran in both directions. Zeus reasoned that the portion near the highway would be the most heavily guarded. It was also the place where the sentries would be most jumpy. So he started moving to his left, pushing quietly through the brush.
What if the Vietnamese heard him and thought he was an infiltrator, testing the line?
Zeus moved back, aiming to circle across to the dirt road. Christian gave him a perplexed look, then joined him silently.
Before they’d gone more than thirty yards, Zeus spotted a sandbagged position in the jungle. There was open ground all around it, a clearing that would make any intruder easy to spot.
The camp was about twenty-five or thirty yards beyond. He could see the roofs of several buildings, and the sides of a few tents.
There were two men behind the sandbags.
Vietnamese? Or Chinese?
Impossible to tell.
“Let’s circle around the other side and see if we can get a look at their uniforms,” said Zeus.
They retreated, carefully treading their way through the vegetation.
Zeus held his breath as they came back around. A floodlight had turned on behind the sandbagged post, throwing long shadows toward them.
They must be beyond the line, Zeus reasoned.
He was feeling good about this, finally very positive. The long ordeal was finally over.
All right, he told himself. Almost home.
“What’s the Vietnamese word for hello?” Zeus asked Christian as he crawled next to a tree.
Christian grabbed his shirt. “You’re not going to need it. Those guys are Chinese. Look at the guns in the shadows. They’re bullpups, not AKs.”
17
Eastern Pennsylvania
Mara woke up feeling stiff but relaxed. If not completely restored to her old self, she had more energy than she’d had in days. She took a long shower—the water pressure was surprisingly good—then had a cup of the surprisingly not-bad complimentary coffee in the room. Dressed, she went out into the hall and found that the marshal service bodyguard they’d been assigned was gone from his post.
That must mean Josh was gone as well. She knocked on his door just in case; when there was no answer, she went downstairs and asked the clerk at the desk where the best place was for breakfast. He directed her to a small shop around a side street in the middle of town, a five-minute walk.
They were sitting in the far corner. The marshal’s plate was scrubbed clean except for some egg stains and a few crumbs from his toast; Josh’s looked as if he had hardly touched his.
“How’d you sleep?” she asked him, pulling out a chair.
“Read this,” he said tersely, shoving a newspaper in front of her.
Mara saw the headline, then flipped the paper over to the back.
“I don’t see why people think the Knicks are a legitimate basketball team,” she said pointedly. “They never win.”
“It’s all bull,” said Josh. “They’re saying I’m a liar.”
“They’re going to do that.” She tapped his forearm lightly, then looked at the marshal. “How are you?”
“Fine.”
Mara looked up as the waitress brought a menu.
“Coffee to start, hon?” asked the waitress. She was younger than Mara, but already had the matronly waitress bit down pat.
“Please.” Mara took the menu.
“Maybe I’ll just go home,” said Josh darkly.
“There’s nothing wrong with that,” answered Mara.
He curled his arms across his chest.
Mara looked at the marshal. “Beautiful day,” she said to him. “Not even cold.”
“Yup.”
“Is there fishing around here?”
“Outta season.”
“No hunting either, then, huh?”
“You hunt?”
“I’ve been known to.”
“Yeah. Outta season,” he said.
He sounded slightly skeptical, doubting that she did actually hunt. She was tempted to ask how bad he thought the breath of a Malaysian tiger stank, but didn’t.
“Isn’t there an amusement park or something around here?” she said instead.
“Sure. There’s Hershey’s out a ways,” said the marshal, his Texas accent twanging. “It’s like an amusement park.”
“Want to do that, Josh? Better than sitting around all day.”
He frowned.
The waitress brought her coffee. Mara ordered two eggs over easy with French toast, home fries, and bacon on the side.
“That’s what I like,” said the waitress. “A woman with an appetite.”
When she left, Mara leaned over and whispered in Josh’s ear. “Let’s ditch the chaperone. What do you say?” She put her hand on his thigh.
Josh turned red.
“Maybe we should go to Hershey’s,” he said aloud. Then he put his hand on hers, and squeezed before letting go.
“Hershey’s,” said Mara, straightening. “How do we get there?”
The marshal was just about to explain when Josh’s phone rang. It was Jablonski.
“Maybe you shouldn’t answer it,” said Mara.
But Josh did.
* * *
Jablonski was almost supernaturally calm.
“You really can’t take this too seriously,” said the political operative. “You have to expect the Chinese to fight back.”
“But they’re lying.”
“It’ll come out in the wash.” He pronounced “wash” as if it were spelled wha-sssshhhh. “Now what you need to do is get on down to D.C. for your congressional hearing. It’ll start promptly at one.”
“What hearing?”
“Senator Grasso’s
. You’ll testify before his committee. Don’t worry, he’s now your biggest fan.”
“You didn’t tell me about a hearing.”
“It just came up. Don’t worry. It’ll go fine.” Jablonski made a sucking noise from the side of his mouth. “Listen, Josh, I have to get going. I’ll get someone to make hotel arrangements. You want to stay at the Watergate? Or you want a quiet place out of town?”
“Who gives a crap,” said Josh, killing the line.
18
On the border of China and Vietnam
Neither Christian nor Zeus spoke as they backed away, once more retracing their route away from the lookout station. They crossed the dirt road well out of view, then began moving east. The moon had risen; they had more than enough light to see by.
“We gotta take a break,” said Christian finally.
“Keep moving.”
Zeus caught sight of a bridge spanning another road. Apparently the camp had been set up at the confluence of several roads heading south.
They sat in a clump of bushes, wordlessly staring at each other as they rested. Both men were tired, but there was no question of spending the night this close to the Chinese. They’d move farther west, find a place to cross.
“I wonder what happened to the girl,” said Christian.
“Solt can take care of herself,” said Zeus.
“I mean that little kid the spy rescued. With the scientist and the Delta guys? Remember?”
“They were SEALs,” said Zeus.
“Whatever.”
“Big difference.”
Christian shrugged. “You liked SOCOM?”
SOCOM was Special Operations Command, where Zeus had been assigned prior to his promotion to major.
“It was good,” he said.
“You thinking of going back?”
“I’d like to.”
“This’ll help,” said Christian. “You got your career all mapped out?”
“Funny time to be talking about careers, Win.”
“What else we got to talk about?”
“True,” said Zeus. “No. You?”
“I used to. I had a line drawn straight through to chief of staff,” continued Christian, his voice softening so that it was barely audible.
“Perry has his eye on you.”
“You’re his fair-haired boy.”
“I thought he hated me because of Red Dragon.”
“He liked the fact that you kicked our ass in the war game.”
“Isn’t helping too much now.”
“All right,” said Christian, rolling slightly to the side and getting up. “Let’s go.”
“Be careful near the road,” said Zeus. “I’ll go first.”
Zeus slipped through the brush, slowly approaching the bridge. It had been built over a wide but shallow ravine, possibly a spot where water ran during the rainy season, or had run—the weather patterns were so hard to predict now. The Chinese hadn’t bothered to post guards, either because it was so close to the camp or because they simply didn’t expect the Vietnamese to be able to attack them from this direction.
They made their way to the bridge along the south side of the gully. Zeus paused under the bridge, noticing a set of wires overhead. The bridge had been wired with demolition charges.
The ravine narrowed into a deeper cut, slicing back to the north. They walked in the middle of it until they came to a pool of water. When they climbed up the side, Zeus saw a fence through the trees to his left.
He walked toward it, expecting that it was the border fence. But instead he saw green splotches and rectangles on the other side—they were still near the camp.
A field had been bulldozed from the jungle on the other side of the fence. It was filled with tanks—at least two dozen from what Zeus could see. There were other vehicles as well: personnel carriers, supply trucks. All were arranged in neat rows, as if they’d stumbled upon a used-car lot.
“Wow,” said Christian. “Where the hell did these come from? There have to be two companies, at least. That wasn’t in any of the briefings.”
The engine noises they’d heard earlier were a little louder here, but didn’t seem to be coming from the tanks. Zeus put his head against the fence to try and get a better view.
What was going on in there?
He dropped to the ground.
“What are you doing?” hissed Christian, dropping beside him.
“I’m going to go get a better look.”
“Where?”
“Inside.”
“Are you nuts?”
The fence was staked every six or eight feet. Zeus couldn’t budge the first one, but the next one he tried came out easily.
“Zeus,” hissed Christian as he slipped beneath the fence. “Zeus! Stop!”
19
Alexandria
They opted for a hotel in Alexandria, reaching it a little over an hour before Josh’s committee meeting was supposed to start.
Mara was just checking into her room when her cell phone rang. She pulled it from her pocket and without checking the number, answered.
“This is Mara.”
“Mara Duncan?”
“Yes?” she answered.
“This is Kyle O’Brien from CNN.”
Mara felt her fingers clench against the plastic of the phone.
“Ms. Duncan?”
“What can I do for you?” she said.
“I saw the video on YouTube—”
“What video?”
“On YouTube.”
“What are you talking about? Who are you looking for?”
“Mara Duncan. Listen, Ms. Duncan—do you want to talk off the record?”
“Off the record about what?”
“Malaysia.”
“This conversation is over.”
It was all she could do to keep herself from slamming the phone to the ground.
* * *
Ten minutes later, Mara sat in the hotel’s tiny business center, watching a YouTube video that purported to be from a newscast on Malaysia television. It detailed a CIA operation that had killed twelve civilians, including two children. Her image was flashed on the screen several times.
According to the hit counter, the video had already been seen 3,289 times. It appeared to have been posted only an hour or two earlier.
Mara’s phone rang again. This time she examined the number before answering. It was an agency number.
Peter Lucas.
“Mara.”
“Mara, this is Peter—”
“What the hell is going on?” she asked. “I just got a call from a reporter on CNN. Have you seen this YouTube video?”
“Which one?” asked Lucas.
“There’s more than one?”
“There’s one on the incident in Malaysia.”
“I saw that. I’m cut into a newscast. Where did it come from?”
“Where do you think?” said Lucas. “There’s one that focuses on you at the UN. Do a name search and you’ll find it.”
She did. A snippet of video of Josh and some others walking through the hall appeared. She was alongside for about three seconds, then eighteen in the slow-motion portion that followed the main part. Her head was conveniently circled with a light halo. The video had been seen only by 876 people.
There were three comments, all in English.
CIA agent Mara Duncan
Paid liar helps Vietnamese propaganda.
For better sex, call 202-555-8900
The number was her home phone number, fortunately disconnected a year before.
“The Chinese did this, obviously,” said Mara.
“That or you pissed off an old boyfriend.”
“I’m really, really not laughing, Peter.”
“Neither am I, Mara. Nor is the director.”
“What are we going to do?”
“Come in and we’ll talk about it. Where are you?”
“I’m in D.C.”
“Oh?… Well, good. Get over
here.”
“Damn. Damn.”
“It’s not the end of the world.”
“Not for you. My cover’s totally blown.”
“In a way, they’re doing us a favor,” said Lucas. “We weren’t positive it was blown. Now we are.”
“You thought it was blown and you didn’t tell me? When?”
“When the money disappeared in Hanoi.”
“Well, thanks for telling me.”
“Yeah, I know. You’ll get through it. Listen, in the meantime, stay away from Josh MacArthur.”
“I’m hanging up, Peter.”
And she did.
20
On the border of China and Vietnam
Zeus crawled across a carpet of weeds and jungle debris, skirting the area where the tanks were parked.
They were large ZTZ99s—main battle tanks, massive beasts designed to do battle with the best the West had to offer, including the U.S. Army’s M1A1. The Vietnamese had nothing in their inventory that could match it.
Two dozen tanks, that he could see; undoubtedly more over the small hill to his right, just out of view. Where had they come from? They would surely have been spotted by American satellites on the way down, yet there hadn’t been one word about them in any of the briefings he’d given the Vietnamese.
They’d be seen soon, if they hadn’t been spotted already. At least one Global Hawk should be covering the area 24/7. All China and Southeast Asia now had the highest priority from the satellite surveillance program. The camo netting might throw off the count slightly, but something this large wasn’t going to escape notice.
Had they just gotten here?
Zeus kept crawling in the direction of the motor hum. It seemed more muffled inside the fence perimeter.
Strange.
There were voices to his left. Zeus froze, staring in the direction of the buildings, trying to see who was coming and where they were.
All he could see in the moonlight were hacked tree trunks, a small grove of them, clustered on a gentle rise.
He decided they would be good cover. Still crawling, he made his way toward them.
He didn’t realize they weren’t tree trunks until he reached them. They were plastic tubes sticking from the ground, covered in material and screening so that they looked like tree trunks.
Vents.
Just as the enormity of his discovery dawned on him, Zeus heard a fresh rumble fifty yards to the south. He raised his head in time to see a dark cloud billowing from behind the small hillock. Something emerged from it, moving toward the tanks he’d just passed.