Shock of War

by Larry Bond

  He showed Chaū the map.

  “We have three more missiles,” said Chaū. “Should we make another attack?”

  “They’ll trap us in these woods if we make the attack from here,” said Zeus, pulling himself to his feet. “They’ll get south of us on the road and come around. We’ll be trapped.”

  Chaū looked disappointed.

  “The best thing to do, is wait a little while,” said Zeus. “But not here. I think we can swing a little more to the north, cross the stream, and keep going until we’re north of the hamlet we were going to hit. We’ll attack them there. If we can take them by surprise, hit a few vehicles, and then run west, they’ll never catch us. We may even be able to hook up with the others.”

  “Yes,” said Chaū. “It is a good plan.”

  * * *

  They walked for over an hour, Zeus in the lead with the map. He had the Chinese assault rifle and several magazines that Angkor had pilfered from the dead. Chaū was next in line, carrying a Chinese gun he, too, had found, along with the box of missiles. Angkor had the rear, hauling the launcher as well as a pair of rifles and a bag of extra ammo.

  The day turned more humid with the sun. While the jungle kept them in shade, between the humidity and the insects Zeus felt as if he were being pelted and pulled with every step he took. The thick vegetation snapped at him, petty lashes to add to the persecution.

  A hollow hunger bit at his stomach. At times his eyes drooped toward the bottom of their sockets, his fatigue welling up.

  To keep himself going, he thought of Anna. And yet thinking of Anna made things even more difficult. She was a prisoner.

  “The water ahead must be deep,” said Chaū as they walked toward the creek. “I can hear it.”

  “Yeah,” muttered Zeus.

  The stream had overflowed its banks. It rushed through the jungle, flooding a good eight or ten feet up into the trees on either side. Zeus paused when he reached the edge. The water’s path was wide but not particularly deep.

  “Should we cross?” asked Chaū. His voice had recovered to the point that he could speak normally without too much strain.

  “I wonder if we could float down the stream,” said Zeus. “We could hit them at the bridge instead of the hamlet.”

  “What?” asked Chaū.

  “If we lashed a few logs together, and just kind of floated down, you think it would work?”

  “What would we use?”

  “Just logs, and we could make some rope from the grass. They wouldn’t expect us to come down the stream.”

  Chaū said nothing. It was an outrageously impractical plan—a dream, really. Zeus was losing his mind.

  “There are some rocks here,” said Zeus, wading into the water. “We’ll get to the other side and move down.”

  The water was only a foot deep, except in the middle, where it quickly dropped another two feet. But they were able to scramble across without their weapons getting wet.

  Building a log raft à la Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn—no way. But a canoe was perfect.

  “Look at that!” said Zeus, shouting as he spotted the boat pushed against a pair of trees upstream.

  It was a wooden boat, slightly battered and small, but perfect.

  A dream, even. But it was real.

  They loaded the missiles and launcher inside. Both of the long oars were missing, but it was easy to tug it along downstream. Chaū, the lightest, sat inside, while Zeus and Angkor pulled it along. Snakes slithered by, and once Zeus swore he saw the eyes of a crocodile.

  Swarms of flies buzzed around them. Every so often Zeus had to let go of the boat to swat at them. The only thing that really worked was to dip under the water to get away, and even that provided only a temporary respite.

  “Bitchin’ flies,” he said to Chaū.

  “Maybe they are Chinese.”

  Angkor said something.

  “We are getting close,” Chaū told Zeus. “Listen.”

  They stopped. Zeus held his breath, but heard nothing. Then through the jungle came a familiar hum on the breeze.

  Motors. Tanks or APCS.

  “We’re getting very close,” he said.

  * * *

  Ten minutes later, they were close enough to feel the vibration of the motors in the air. They were about two miles farther north of the spot where they’d fought earlier in the day—much closer than Zeus had reckoned from the map.

  A long highway bridge spanned the swamp. Peering from the trees at the bankside, Zeus could make out a quartet of trusses arching above the swollen water below the roadway. There were perhaps a dozen vehicles on the south side of the bridge—and what looked like an endless armada on the north.

  “We can have our pick,” said Chaū, standing next to him.

  “I have a better idea,” said Zeus. “Let’s take out the bridge.”

  21

  American embassy, Hanoi

  Among the great difficulties for an American seeking to help Vietnamese were the ironies involved. Harland Perry was surrounded by them.

  Trying to rally the populace against the Chinese, the state media had begun a series of interviews with common citizens who had survived the war with the United States. The interviews were interspersed with old news footage from the war. Among the images that particularly bothered Perry were those showing American prisoners of war being marched through Hanoi and other Vietnamese cities.

  History could easily repeat itself now in Beijing.

  What would history say of his role? It wouldn’t know much about it, especially if the war escalated. Someone else would be in charge.

  He had more pressing concerns.

  “Sorry to keep you waiting, Harland,” said Melanie Behrens, appearing at the door. “I had to talk to our consul in Saigon. Are you ready to go?”

  Perry nodded at the ambassador. She glanced across the thick-paneled room where he’d been sitting.

  “You’re not watching that propaganda, are you?” she asked, nodding at the television.

  “Thought it might raise my spirits,” he said sardonically, following her out.

  22

  Inland from Halong Bay

  Zeus slipped along in the water, half-swimming, half-walking, pulling the missile box along with him as he scuttled toward the bridge.

  When he’d set out, he’d thought the north side would be the safest to use as an approach. But as he got closer to the bridge, he saw that the Chinese had troops on the south side patrolling near the bank. Thankfully the long shadows of the sun covered his side of the water. Still, he had to move carefully, half-holding his breath. He had no gun; it would have been ruined in the water.

  Angkor and Chaū were upstream, watching. If he was caught, they were to fire the missile at the center support, hopefully hitting and exploding it.

  That was a long shot, and not just because it would take a steady hand to keep the targeting beam on the support. There were several supports around the beam, and blowing that one strut up probably wouldn’t take the roadway down.

  Zeus had come up with an alternate plan—he’d arrange the two remaining warheads like an IED on the top spar at the center. They’d strike them with the third missile.

  That was a long shot as well. But he’d seen the Iraqis do that at least twice on one of his training tapes. So he knew it could be done.

  The Chinese were moving their forces very slowly, mustering on both side of the water. It wasn’t clear why, whether it was just their normal caution, or if the road farther south was submerged. It might also be that the firefight had given them enough of a bloody nose that they were now going to be extra cautious.

  An APC sat in the water about fifty yards from the bridge. It was a Type 77, similar to the ones they had battled before. It was supposed to be amphibious, but it had bogged down in the thick muck.

  The vehicles he could see on the shore to his left were more modern—wheeled WZ 523s—M1984s as far as the U.S. Army was concerned. There were a lot of them on the
northern side of the bridge, perhaps an entire regiment.

  Zeus slipped around the abandoned APC. The side door was open. He was tempted to stick his head inside, look, and see if anyone had forgotten their weapon in the rush to get out. But that was unlikely, and there was no sense besides: he couldn’t carry a rifle easily without getting it wet.

  Tugging the case behind him, Zeus stopped as he spotted a trio of soldiers standing beneath the northern side of the bridge. His throat tightened—it would be impossible to get to the bridge if they stayed there.

  But they weren’t standing guard. They were relieving themselves in the water. One after the other they finished, zipping up and walking to the embankment. One stopped, scooped up a rock, and spun it back across the water. It hopped three times across the ten yards or so, then sank near the other side.

  The others laughed.

  Zeus took a deep breath. Stooping down so the water came to his neck, he began walking toward the middle of the stream, trying to drift gently and not splash. The water was not very deep even in the middle; if he’d stood it would barely come to his chest. He held the case under his arm, fighting against its buoyancy.

  A truck started across the span. Zeus pushed faster, finally reaching the shadows next to the stanchion as the vehicle passed directly overhead.

  Zeus pulled the missile box up and opened it. He dipped water inside and let it settle down, holding it against the current. Then he took the missiles out, one at a time, placing them on the cement pier the girder rose from. Climbing up onto the curved archway, Zeus examined the strutwork to find his target.

  From the distance, the idea had been easy: he would tie the warheads against the steel X where the upright met the arch; the explosion would topple the bridge. But up close it didn’t look anywhere near as easy. The steel was thick, and while the shaped projectile would undoubtedly go through it, Zeus wasn’t sure that it could both penetrate the steel and explode the warheads at the same time.

  He’d have to be a goddamn engineer to figure it out.

  So why the hell had the Iraqis succeeded when he couldn’t?

  Or rather, what exactly had they done?

  A swell of despair clamped over him. Paralyzed, Zeus stared hopelessly at the struts, unable to move. Fatigue, hunger, and exhaustion were his real problems, but explaining his paralysis could not erase it, and understanding it was no help in dealing with it at all. Zeus hung under the bridge, his body vibrating with the rumble of one of the heavy APCs passing above. All his courage and strength were negated in that moment; he was a black hole, empty of everything, even fear, just a collection of frayed nerves and taut muscles clinging to the underside of a highway far from home.

  Then, in the pit of his mind, a single thought rose up:

  Anna.

  It was not love that brought him back to himself. It wasn’t his concern for her, or even his need to save her. It wasn’t even his lust for the softness of her body against his.

  Anger broke his paralysis. Rage at the injustice of her persecution.

  It was a ferocious anger, a madness—truly an insanity, a righteous rising up against the cruel, cruel injustice of a world that would harm a woman who tried to save others. And while logic might have directed that anger more properly toward the Vietnamese, in Zeus the emotion focused on the Chinese, Evil’s agent in the war.

  The rage that had driven Zeus at different points over the past several days, the blind craziness that even he mistook for courage, merged with the deepest parts of his soul. It became something he could control, something that would allow him to do what had to be done, to act with the logic and directness of a warrior.

  Zeus pulled off his belt and slipped the missiles against the beam. He tied the belt as tightly as he could, then started to slip into the water. As he stepped down, a vehicle came onto the roadway and stopped almost directly above him. The bridge vibrated with its motor.

  Zeus stopped, concerned that the warheads might slip from his knot. He glanced upward, trying to get a glimpse to make sure they weren’t coming loose.

  A soldier began to shout. Zeus barely heard his yell over the engine, but the gunshot that followed was loud and clear.

  23

  Washington, D.C.

  The tall bastard with the pockmarked face pushed him down against the floor of the prison cell. Greene gasped for air—he couldn’t breathe. Hands grabbed him—dozens of hands, gripping tightly against his arms and legs and side. Someone hit his genitals and he felt a pain rise in the pit of his stomach. Tears were streaming from his eyes, and he was ashamed.…

  * * *

  President Greene lurched upright in his bed. He knew was just a dream, but for a moment he was confused, lost. Was he home? Why was he alone?

  He was in the White House. His wife was gone, visiting relatives.

  He was in the White House. Home.

  The dream was somewhat familiar, a not-quite accurate replay of some of his experiences as a guest of the North Vietnamese government. They had beaten the hell out of him, and the tall bastard was a real guard, and a genuine tormenter.

  Not that the session had taken place the way he saw it in the dream. And many of the details were off. In the dream, for instance, the cell was spacious and well lit. It had been the opposite in real life.

  Am I doing the right thing helping the bastards now?

  Yes. Unfortunately. China had to be dealt with.

  The bigger question was: What should he do next? The Russian weapons would help, but clearly they weren’t going to be enough. How far was he willing to go? Already some would say he was breaking the law, or at least its spirit.

  Greene glanced over at the clock on his sideboard. It was a little past two.

  Too early to get up, even for him.

  He slipped back beneath the covers, thinking of how much he missed his wife.

  24

  Inland from Halong Bay

  Zeus turned toward the sound of the bullets. They were striking the water just to the side of the highway.

  They couldn’t be firing at him. But what?

  The vehicle above him started moving again. There were shouts, but the sound of the APC drowned them out. He considered dropping into the water and making a run for it, but decided it was wiser to climb up higher against the bridge and see what happened.

  Worst case, Chaū would fire at the beam. He’d be dead either way.

  There was more gunfire. The vehicle reached the south side of the roadway. There were shouts—three or four different voices. Zeus saw a pair of legs coming into the water on his left, then another.

  The men shouted and pointed. Zeus leaned over, watching as they grabbed the missile case from the water.

  The men shouted something in Chinese.

  Zeus waited in the shadow of the bridge. He didn’t dare move, didn’t dare look.

  If they come for me, Chaū will kill them all anyway.

  An eternity and an instant passed. Finally, Zeus heard the sound of another vehicle starting across. The bridge began to vibrate heavily.

  Slowly, he leaned out from behind his perch. The men had moved on.

  * * *

  Zeus ran the entire way back, hugging the shadows, trying not to slip or splash in the water as he pushed through the flooded brush. With every step, he thought to himself that now was the moment that Chaū and Angkor would fire.

  With his first steps, he felt relief. But as he continued, disappointment crept in, and finally concern: Why hadn’t they fired?

  Chaū stepped from the brush as Zeus approached.

  “Major Murphy?”

  “Sight on the middle post,” said Zeus, running to them. “The warheads are behind it. Fire! Fire!”

  Zeus ran to them, dropping to his knee in a soggy slide. The Chinese were streaming across the bridge in a thick convoy, APCs lined up bumper to bumper.

  Angkor moved back to let Zeus look through the eyepiece. He pushed his face against the rubber, saw that the aim was a lit
tle low.

  “Chaū, explain where I put the warheads,” said Zeus. “He has to hit right there.”

  Chaū said something to Angkor. The sergeant replied in Vietnamese, gesturing with his hands. Zeus immediately understood.

  “He says that the missile rides slightly higher than the beam,” said Chaū.

  “As long as he understands. Tell him to fire.” Zeus stepped back. “Tell him to fire. He’s got one shot. Get them now!”

  Angkor knelt in front of the launcher. Zeus rose, not caring if the enemy saw him. There was a click and a swoosh, air rushing away; the missile faltered, nudging left, then corrected itself, pushing back at the beam.

  It flashed through. Zeus saw a bolt of lightning—a white sheet rustled under the bridge. The roadway seemed to rise, as if lifting itself away from the missile. But the weight of the carriers pushed it back down into place.

  A black and gray cloud of steam and smoke erupted from the water. The bridge caved into it, the APCs sliding downward like so many toy trucks kicked by a malevolent three-year-old. They rolled and twisted and fell on their tops as the entire bridge collapsed, and the sole road to the south held by the Chinese was destroyed, their path to conquest temporarily blocked.

  25

  Quàng Ninh Province

  Zeus and the others moved silently after the bridge collapsed, abandoning the launcher and trotting upstream. Their boots splashed in the muck. Zeus felt his side strain and his groin starting to pull but kept on. Every so often he felt the heavy, now sodden bandage at his neck. It surprised him—he’d almost forgotten he had been shot there.

  Grazed. A talisman of luck rather than a wound.

  Gradually, their pace slowed to a jog, then a walk. The Chinese began scrambling behind them, but the initial confusion as well as the thick foliage made pursuit difficult. With no roads to follow, the Chinese soldiers had to move through the jungle, and had to suspect an ambush at every moment. They fell farther and farther behind.