Shock of War

by Larry Bond

  So they had to blow the bridge.

  He heard a splash in front of him, then saw something moving on the ground. The first thing he thought was that it was an alligator. Then he saw an arm—Christian’s. He’d fallen.

  Zeus grabbed his arm and pulled him upright.

  “Goddamn rain,” complained Christian as he pulled away. “Come on.”

  Zeus followed. The two tanks that had headed the column were now across the bridge, moving down the road. Zeus heard the rattle of a machine gun over the roar of the rising wind, but it was impossible to know if the gunfire was coming from the tanks or the Vietnamese.

  Zeus cupped his hands over his eyes, trying to see through the rain. Someone was moving on the right side of the bridge. Assuming it was the Vietnamese soldier, he started in his direction. After only a step he slipped and fell facedown into the flooded marsh. The water pushed hard against his side. The rain was falling so hard that the marsh was becoming a stream, and an angry one at that.

  It’d be a river before this was done.

  A man was climbing along the steel understructure. Zeus made his way toward him. The water was already above his knees.

  It was the Vietnamese engineer, checking the wire lines. He yelled something to Zeus. The wind carried his shout, but it was in Vietnamese, and Zeus had no idea what he was saying.

  The steel beam that supported the bridge was just wide enough so he could put his knees on either side of the rise that split it. He began crawling upward, grasping the metal to steady himself against the wind. He found a wire running up the support and followed it to the charges.

  “Got it! Got it!” Christian’s voice came on the wind, but Zeus couldn’t see him. And he had no idea what he meant.

  The first charge was taped around the beam about a third of the way up. Zeus followed the wire to the posts. He tightened the screws though they were already hard against their stops, and moved on.

  Zeus ducked down as the arch approached the underside of the bridge. A charge had been planted at the very peak, in the little triangular curve at the top of the arch. To reach it, Zeus had to lay down across the steel, the metal rib in his face and chest. He hugged the beam as the wind picked up, his fingers crawling across the charge as he attempted to find the connection posts. He found them. The wire seemed secure. He tightened the bolts, his fingers so slippery he couldn’t even tell if he was turning them or not.

  The beam began to vibrate. Zeus let go of the charge and hugged the bridge, wrapping his legs as well as his arms around the metal. He thought it was the wind, gusting, then realized from the heavy, throaty sound that another tank was approaching … was, in fact, already on the bridge, driving above him.

  And maybe another and another.

  It was too late. Too late.

  They could still blow the bridge. It would still slow them down. Four or five tanks weren’t going to make a difference.

  Go.

  Go!

  Zeus started to crawl back down. He couldn’t see where he was going because of the rain. He raised his hand to wipe his eyes clear, but as he did, he slipped and started to fall.

  He threw himself back against the beam, clinging for dear life.

  It was no good. He was too wet to get a grip. He let his feet down, then fell into the flooded marsh below.

  Zeus smacked into a deep puddle of water. His feet collapsed beneath him and he slipped backward, falling so his head plunged below the surface of the water. Though it was just barely over his face, he still managed to get water up his nose. Coughing, he rolled over and staggered to his feet, pushing away from the bridge.

  A light moved across it—one of the tanks.

  A gust of wind slammed so hard against his back that Zeus felt himself turning around involuntarily. He hunched down and began making toward the field, trudging through the water and mud. What had been just a wet field just a few minutes before was now a torrent of water.

  The way the water was rising, it might go over the bridge. Maybe the Chinese would be stopped after all.

  Zeus heard a series of rumbles. Unsure whether they were thunder or cracks from the ZTZ99’s 120 mm guns, he turned back toward the bridge to see what was going on. A flash of lightning revealed the silhouettes of two tanks on the bridge, just starting to cross. Several more approached behind them.

  There were already five across. The first two were about fifty yards from the bridge, each on one side of the road. Three more clustered in a row, moving slowly toward them.

  Something ran by on his left.

  Three figures—one of the attack teams.

  Zeus started to follow, trailing by about ten yards. Part of him knew it was foolish. The madman that had taken him over just a short while before had vanished. But the soldier left in control had no better plan.

  “Christian!” he yelled. “Christian!”

  Something moved on the tank ahead.

  Tracers flew.

  Zeus threw himself down.

  A red light flashed to his right, too large, too jagged, to be gunfire. Zeus turned his head, and saw a black jumble falling in his direction, moving in slow motion against the howling wind. There was a scream above the roar, a cry for help, and a terrible reverberation that shook deep into the earth.

  The Vietnamese had managed to blow the charges on the bridge.

  2

  Manila, the Philippines

  Ric Kerfer pushed the glass toward the bartender, contemplating the critical question of the moment: another bourbon, or switch to beer?

  There were good arguments either way. Lately, bourbon messed with his stomach, not a particularly pleasant situation. It wasn’t automatic, though. There was some sort of equation involved: X amount over whatever it was yielded problems. But what X was, and whether those problems increased geometrically or not beyond it, had yet to be determined.

  On the other hand, the beer in this allegedly first-class Manila establishment was decidedly second-rate. The Japanese offerings were basically Japanese. Kerfer liked much that was Japanese, but nothing involving alcohol. Tsingtao—Chinese—was out of the question. Which left Stella, an Italian lager. And what the fuck did the wops know about beer?

  Espresso, sure. Grappa, definitely. Wine, eh. But beer?

  “Sir?”

  “Yeah, I’ll take another bourbon,” said Kerfer. It was research.

  He leaned back on the barstool, surveying the lounge, as the Manila First-Class Oasis called itself. The bar was about the last place anyone in the world would look for a hard-ass SEAL leader like Kerfer, which was exactly why he was here.

  Unfortunately for Kerfer, he wasn’t quite so impossible to find as he had hoped.

  “Either you hit the lottery or you’re getting some money under the table from somewhere.”

  Kerfer glanced up into the mirror behind the bar. One of his old sea daddies, Jacob Braney, was standing with his arms folded about twenty paces away.

  Kerfer scowled into the mirror.

  “Fuck you, chief,” he said as Braney came next to him.

  “And yourself back, asshole.”

  “Drink?”

  “At these prices? You’re buying.”

  “Scotch,” Kerfer told the bartender. “Worst crap you got.”

  Chief Braney had served under Kerfer during his first SEAL command. While officers didn’t admit it, old sea dogs like Braney had a hell of a lot to teach them, especially when they were still wet behind the ears as Kerfer had been.

  One of the things that made Kerfer different was the fact that he admitted it. He considered Braney one of his best teachers in the service, and one of the few men he was truly close to now.

  Not that an outsider would ever know it from their conversation.

  “God, how the hell do you live with yourself, drinking in a place like this?” asked Braney after his drink arrived. “Look at this—all these guys are wearing suits.”

  “I think of it like I’m goin’ to the zoo.”

 
Braney laughed. He’d left the Navy a few years before; after six months catching up on all the sleep he’d missed, he’d gone back to work, first as a contract CIA worker, then with the National Security adviser’s office. He’d never been forthcoming with the details of his employment in either case, though Kerfer knew the general lay of the land, and had even worked with him a few times.

  “So, to what do I owe the pleasure?” asked Kerfer.

  “Can’t a guy just wander in to see an old friend and bum a drink?”

  “Sure. And Cinderella’s sittin’ upstairs with her legs spread, waiting for me.”

  Braney smiled and drained the Scotch. “Another,” he said, pushing it toward the bartender.

  “We need something done really fast, in a place you’ve been very recently,” said Braney.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Boss asked for you specifically.”

  “I’ll bet.”

  “Well, I think they thought you were in the States,” said Braney. “I was sent to track you down.”

  “You really should get a better job,” said Kerfer.

  * * *

  A half hour later, driving to the airport, Braney handed Kerfer a sat phone and gave him the outlines of his mission.

  “There are some goodies from our Russian friends that need to be delivered to Vietnam. They’ll tell you where once you’re in the air.”

  “Why not tell me now?”

  “I don’t think they’re sure themselves. It’s all quiet, you know.”

  “That country is one big fuckup.” Kerfer stopped talking as Braney passed a pair of slow-moving trucks. Driving was not the chief’s forte. He’d once nearly driven straight off a bridge in Venezuela on a clear, dry day when he hadn’t had a drink for a week.

  Which, come to think of it, might have been half the problem.

  “I don’t get much input on foreign affairs,” Braney told him as he pulled back into the lane, barely missing an oncoming Suzuki compact. “I’m just the messenger.”

  “Well, send them back the message that it’s one big fuckup.”

  “I’m sure they’ll listen with all ears. Don’t use the phone to call out unless it’s an A-1 emergency. And if things fuck up bad, they aren’t gonna want to know you.”

  “Feeling’s mutual, I’m sure.”

  3

  Quàng Ninh Province

  Zeus watched as the bridge fell into the marsh, the tanks falling like toys. He was twenty yards away from the edge of the bridge, if that, but the howl of the wind was so strong that he couldn’t hear the crash.

  He felt it, though, the earth moving beneath his chest in a long, violent ripple. He watched from his knees, shielding his eyes with his hand. A bank of steam filled the air where the bridge had been. He rose, leaning forward to see through it, then immediately threw himself down, ducking below the tracers from one of the tanks that had already crossed.

  A yellow light moved into the space where the bridge had been, crawling forward at a snail’s pace. Had the driver not seen the bridge go down? Suddenly the light dropped, the dark shadow behind it disappearing.

  Zeus crawled to his right, toward the edge of the ravine. The water was rising rapidly, filled not only by the rain but the runoff from higher ground.

  There were figures in the water, and big black boxes—overturned tanks.

  Another ZTZ99 started firing from the right side of the ravine, before the bridge. Men moved. Zeus heard shouts on the wind.

  Where the hell was Christian?

  Zeus heard a motor whine nearby. He looked to his left and saw one of the tanks that had already crossed. It was backing up in his direction. He got up and began to run to his right, trying simply to get out of the way.

  A flash of lightning revealed a soldier on the top of the tank. He whirled the machine gun around and began firing into the ravine, raking it with gunfire.

  One of the other tanks began returning fire. The tank reversed course, starting back onto the road.

  The soldier dropped from the tank.

  Zeus found him curled up in the field a short distance ahead. A fresh volley of rain fell in a ferocious swoop, pelting him from all sides as the wind shifted back and forth, unable to decide on which path offered the maximum chance for destruction.

  The body didn’t move. Zeus reached the legs and pulled himself forward, turning the man over as he crawled next to him.

  It wasn’t a Vietnamese soldier. It was Christian.

  * * *

  “Hey!” yelled Zeus. “Hey!”

  Christian remained motionless.

  Zeus pulled himself up to a kneeling position, then tucked his shoulder down into Christian’s chest. He gathered the major’s legs and rose, staggering in the slippery, wet grass. There was gunfire somewhere—the high-pitched metallic sound of the machine gun cut through the whine of the wind—but he ignored it. Zeus took two steps. Realizing he was heading the wrong way, he changed course and began moving to his left in the direction of the road.

  The tank that Christian had fallen from had stopped about twenty yards ahead. Zeus decided it would be safer to pass behind the tank, cross the road, and move toward the spot where the Vietnamese company was supposed to fall back to.

  He’d just started behind the tank when the turret began to move. The gun barrel swung in his direction, so close at first that Zeus thought it was going to hit him. He jerked right, nearly losing his balance, then staggered forward, clear of the gun.

  A shadow came at him, moving.

  Zeus started to move to his right, to get out of the way. The shadow came right at him, materializing into a man. They collided, falling down.

  “Leave the tank,” Zeus shouted, figuring that the man was one of the Vietnamese soldiers attacking the tank. “Help me get my friend out of here! He’s hurt!”

  The other man didn’t move. Zeus pulled Christian up over his shoulder. He heard a groan—the first sign of life.

  He turned back to the soldier he’d run into. The man was two or three feet away, saying something. In the wind and the rain it was impossible to hear what it was, or even make out the language.

  Lightning flashed. Zeus saw an insignia on the man’s lapel. He was an officer.

  Chinese. With a gun in his hand.

  Zeus dove at him, using his body and Christian’s to bowl him over. The gun went off near his head, and Zeus felt something burn the side of his face.

  There was a rumble. A whistle—the mortars were firing again.

  He couldn’t see where the Chinese officer was, even though he had to be very close. Still holding Christian over his shoulder, Zeus pushed up to his knees, then to his feet. And began to run with every ounce of his strength. His feet sunk deeply into the soft, mucky earth.

  I have to get away from the mortars.

  The shells exploded everywhere, fists pounding the earth. Zeus spotted a low mound on his left and headed for it.

  It was the house that had been blown up earlier. He detoured right, barely avoiding a crater that had been left by one of the tank shells.

  His lungs ached. The rest of him was numb.

  His pace, slow to begin with, slacked until he was barely making progress.

  A figure rose about thirty yards from him. Another.

  “I’m a friend!” he yelled. “American!”

  He kept moving forward. They yelled again. Their guns were pointed in his direction.

  God, it’s the Chinese, he thought.

  Exhausted, he slipped to his knees. As he crumbled, he felt a hand catch him and looked up into the face of Major Chaū, the translator.

  4

  The Gulf of Tonkin

  And with a sudden crash, the worst of the storm was over.

  The wind, still strong, shifted. The waves, still high, continued to pound. But the McLane, struggling for hours in the darkness, stood upright in the waves.

  There was no longer a question of survival. The worst of the typhoon had passed.

  Silas, still
manning the wheel, turned to his crew. A relief team had come up; the seamen who’d been injured had been helped to sick bay.

  When? Hours ago? Minutes? He couldn’t remember or calculate.

  His hands trembled when he took them off the wheel, turning it over to petty officer Gordon.

  “Lieutenant Cradle, I’m going below to check on the ship,” he told the officer of the deck.

  “Sir.”

  It was a good, bracing response. Silas nodded.

  Lt. Commander Li met him in the CIC. Her face looked bleached white, except for the purplish welts beneath her eyes.

  “Commander, you were right,” he told Li. “I owe you and the ship’s crew an apology.”

  Her lower lip trembled. She half nodded, then struggled to respond. “Commander, the merchant ships…”

  Silas frowned, waiting for the news.

  “The ships are three miles from us,” she told him. “East.”

  “East?”

  “Yes, sir. We’re between them and the port,” she told him. “You did it.”

  “We did it,” said Silas. “Get the boarding teams ready. I’ll be on the bridge.”

  5

  Quàng Ninh Province

  Christian was dead.

  There was no way of knowing which of the several bullets that had hit him had killed him. Most had left large gouges in his body, thick angry welts.

  The hole near the middle of his forehead was small, cut by a 9 mm bullet. Probably the same one that had grazed Zeus on the cheek, though no one would ever know for sure.

  For much of the time he had known him, Zeus had despised Christian. He’d been an uptight prig at West Point, an insufferable know-it-all as Perry’s aide.

  A crazy idiot when they’d escaped through China.

  But now Zeus remembered him as a valuable soldier. He’d proven himself on the Hainan mission.

  And in China, and again blowing the last bridge. Maybe he’d been the one who fixed the charge—no one would ever know, because the sapper had died as well.