by Larry Bond
“One more thing,” he said to Wu. “Help me with the tree trunk.”
Jing Yo had seen the trunk on the ground earlier. About a half meter in diameter and nearly two meters long, it was heavy and difficult to carry between them. Wu told him he needed to let go and rest when they reached the road.
“We’ll just roll it from here,” said Jing Yo, and they let it drop.
Jing Yo rigged the tree at the corner of the rear wheel, hoping to use it as an anchor or fulcrum, fixing the lower half of the vehicle in place so it could be pulled upward. It was only partly successful — the vehicle dragged against the pavement as the other tugged. Still, the truck began to tilt.
“Go!” Sergeant Wu said to the driver. “Give it gas.”
The driver did — but too much. His motor stalled. The vehicles strained against each other, as if playing tug-of-war.
“I’ll do it,” said Wu, his disgust as evident as his impatience. He climbed up into the cab, shoving the driver aside. After starting the engine, he gunned the truck forward, then jammed on the brakes. The other truck jerked back onto its tires.
“See if it will start,” Jing Yo told the driver who’d crashed it originally.
Until now, the man had stood, frozen and silent, at the side of the road where Sergeant Wu had left him earlier. Now, sensing that he might win a reprieve, he sprang forward. Inside the cab, he pumped the gas a few times, then turned the engine over. It whined, but didn’t start.
“You’re flooding it,” said Sergeant Wu.
“Private, relax,” said Jing Yo, walking to the cab. “Take your foot off the gas.”
“It always needs a pump.”
“You’ve pumped it plenty already, idiot,” said Sergeant Wu.
“Let it rest for a moment,” said Jing Yo calmly.
He waited for a full minute, staring at the driver the entire time. The man held his gaze for only a few seconds before turning away.
“Now try. Gently. Do not pump the gas.”
The engine caught, ran fitfully for a few moments, then suddenly backfired and gave up.
“Once more,” said Jing Yo.
The battery was starting to go. The starter whined as it tried moving the pistons without the proper voltage behind it.
“Now you can pump it,” said Jing Yo. “A single tap.”
Once again the engine caught, this time solidly. The driver revved it, not entirely trusting it to run on its own. Before Jing Yo could tell him to do so, he put the truck in gear and set off in the direction the others had taken. Sergeant Wu waved the other truck after him.
“Idiot peasants,” said Sergeant Wu. “They’ve never driven. But they’re the ones chosen to drive the trucks.”
“Which requires more skill, Sergeant? Combat, or driving a truck?” asked Jing Yo.
“Combat, of course.”
Jing Yo nodded. “And which is more difficult — fighting an enemy, or delivering supplies?”
“I can’t fight without bullets. But I get your point.”
Sergeant Wu reached into his pocket for his cigarettes. He shook the pack, then handed it toward Jing Yo. It was the first time he had ever offered one.
“Cigarette, Lieutenant?”
“No thank you.”
Wu lit up, then took a long drag from the cigarette. He released a cloud of smoke when he exhaled.
“Brave of you, running over to grab Ai Gua out,” said the sergeant. “Considering the way the trucks are rigged with explosives.”
“He is my soldier. He should expect nothing less.”
Sergeant Wu smiled, amused, though Jing Yo did not quite understand why. It was his duty, as an officer, to look out for his men the way a father would watch his sons.
He hadn’t thought of his duty at the moment, just understood it the same way his legs understood how to walk.
“What was that thing you did with your foot?” asked the sergeant. “On the windshield.”
“The kick? So we could rig it properly? The windshield won’t matter — it will be blown up in a few hours.”
“You’re all right, Lieutenant. You’re tougher than I thought. And not as stuck-up.”
Jing Yo walked over to the side of the road, examining the gouges in the earth. They would not mean anything to anyone, he decided, and could safely be left.
“Uh-oh,” said Wu, reading the signal from the lookout. A minute later, Private Po came running up the road.
“Truck coming,” he hissed. “Old pickup.”
“We’ll stop it,” said Jing Yo. “We want them alive.”
Jing Yo checked his uniform, then reached to his belt to undo the snap holding his pistol in its holster. Wu, rifle in hand, stood two meters away. Po trotted to the side of the road, taking up a position where he could cover the truck.
Headlights appeared in the distance. Jing Yo put up his hand.
The truck began to slow almost immediately. When he was sure it was going to stop, Jing Yo stepped to the side of the road and waited. The driver was a man of about fifty, thin, a wreath of white hair around his head. He reminded Jing Yo of the monks who had taught him as a young boy.
“Where are you going?” Jing Yo demanded in Vietnamese as the man rolled down his window.
“What is the army doing here?”
“We are on official business,” said Jing Yo. “Let me see your identification.”
The man frowned, then reached into his pocket. Sergeant Wu, meanwhile, appeared on the other side of the cab.
The man handed out an ID card folded around some papers. Jing Yo opened the card and unfolded the papers, looking at them first. Two were on official letterhead; a third was handwritten.
While the lieutenant had spent several months refining his spoken Vietnamese, his reading ability lagged, and he wasn’t sure precisely what the letters said. The man appeared to be a resident of Bo Sai, a village ten kilometers to the south.
Jing Yo knew it well: it was one of the checkpoints for tomorrow night’s advance by the main force.
“Why are you going north?” Jing Yo asked, folding the papers.
“As the doctor’s letter says. My great-aunt — ”
“I’m not interested in aunts, or in sob stories,” said Jing Yo sharply. “There is a curfew here. You are not to be driving.”
“A curfew?”
“Do you know that you are driving in the direction of China? Our enemy?”
The man tapped his fingers on the steering wheel, apparently a nervous habit.
“I’m not going to China,” he said. “My aunt lives with the hill people. She — ”
“Have you been over the border recently?” asked Jing Yo sharply.
“Never.”
“Have you been there in the last few days?”
“I told you. Never.”
Sergeant Wu pulled open the passenger door. For a moment, Jing Yo thought he was going to grab the man; then he realized he was only opening the glove compartment.
The man reached to stop him. Jing Yo grabbed his shoulder.
“Your business is with me,” Jing Yo said. “Why are you driving to China?”
“I am not going to China, comrade,” said the man. Finally, he was scared. The color drained from his face. His fingers, rather than tapping, were now dancing in a nervous tremor. “My aunt is very sick. She is important to our family. She — ”
“Nothing,” said Wu, snapping the glove compartment closed.
Wu’s Vietnamese was limited, but his accent and tones, especially in very short bursts, were excellent. His brooding manner was a perfect complement, signaling to any who heard him that it would be unwise to question him.
“I have nothing for you,” said the driver, turning back to Jing Yo. “But you must be hungry. There will be food in the village. It is just two kilometers ahead.”
“You are not going there tonight. Turn around and go back. Move now.”
“But — ”
“The army has closed the road. And it will be c
losed until further notice. Tell your friends and neighbors. But do it tomorrow. Tonight there is a curfew, and anyone who violates it will be shot.”
The man pushed the truck into reverse, then backed down the road about twenty meters before making a three-point turn.
“I knew you weren’t going to kill him,” said Sergeant Wu as the tail-lights disappeared around the bend. “Just like you wouldn’t have killed that man last night.”
“Why is that?” said Jing Yo coldly.
“Fan thought it was because you were a coward.”
Jing Yo couldn’t keep himself from smiling.
“But I see it has to do with your superstitions,” said Wu. “You’re not a coward, Lieutenant. I’m glad of that.”
“Which superstitions?”
“Religion, superstitions — it’s your kung fu, right? The dance with your leg.”
“Do you know a lot about kung fu, Sergeant?”
Sergeant Wu shook his head.
“I do not kill if it is unnecessary,” said Jing Yo. “Nor if the death does not serve some higher purpose. I let him go because he will serve us.”
“How does he help us?”
“He will tell everyone he meets tomorrow that he encountered Vietnamese soldiers on the highway leading to China. The word of a plain man is worth ten times the promise of a politician.”
Sergeant Wu nodded, and went to check on the men.
* * *
When he was positive that the trucks had gone without leaving stragglers or sentries, Josh pushed himself backward and sat in a little hollow amid the brush. What did the trucks mean? he asked himself. Vietnamese army trucks driving out of China, on a back road without their lights in the dead of night — why?
The two countries were not precisely enemies, but Josh knew from the precursory briefing the U.S. State Department envoy had given him before he left on the trip that they were certainly not friends. Even the two debates he’d witnessed at the UN, theoretically focused on allocating money for the scientific expedition he had joined, had made the tensions clear. Enmity between China and all of its neighbors, with the sometime exception of Russia, had grown exponentially since the dramatic upturn in global climate change.
Something was going on, or maybe there was more to the squabbling than met the eye.
Did this have anything to do with the massacres?
The questions were overwhelming. He couldn’t answer them. The important thing at the moment was that he didn’t know and couldn’t know what the situation was. And therefore, he couldn’t trust either the Vietnamese or the Chinese. He couldn’t trust anyone. He had to depend on himself.
That was the lesson he had learned as a child. He had to go into survival mode. No more panic — use logic to get himself out of this. Logic. A scientist’s tool.
Josh took a deep breath. He had to go south, away from the border, and away from the people who were after him. Eventually, he would find a village where he could find transportation. He would make his way to Hanoi, to the U.S. embassy.
Without help from the Vietnamese authorities. Maybe with no one’s help.
Plan made, he leaned to the side and rose, unfolding his frame upward. As the blood rushed from his head, he felt slightly faint. A by-product of hunger, he told himself — the potatoes had been less than nutritious.
Josh pushed the low bushes near the tree and stepped out into the dirt road. He could follow it, as long as he was careful. It was his only choice, really — walking in the jungle at night was difficult and time consuming, not to mention dangerous. And he had to travel at night, at least until he figured out what was going on.
He’d hide himself and sleep during the day.
For the first hour as he walked, Josh kept his mind busy by reviewing the route they’d taken to get to the camp, trying to remember different landmarks along the way. But it was difficult to do that while still paying attention to the road and nearby jungle. Eventually, his thoughts drifted away, and his mind filled with the details of what was around him, the smells, the sounds, the shadows of the trees rising on both sides of him, funneling him onward.
Fatigue settled against him in long, modulating waves; his thighs would feel battered for a while, and lifting them would be almost impossible. He would drag them through the dust for a hundred yards or so, until gradually the fatigue dissipated. They would seem lighter; within a few paces he would be walking normally again — not sprinting along by any means, but making steady progress. Then his shoulders would feel tired, and his eyes. The process would repeat, each part of him taking its own turn at being tired.
After about two hours, Josh’s left calf cramped terribly. He stopped and tried kneading it out with his hand, pressing his thumb firmly against the knot just below the muscle’s crown. But the cramp grew as if it were a contagious disease. His whole lower leg began to spasm, the muscles in his sole and arch freezing in a jagged tangle of pain.
He knew the cure — he simply had to relax his muscles and the pain would go away. But relaxing was the most difficult thing in the world to do just then; climbing Mount Everest barefoot and without oxygen would have been easier.
It was amazing how much pain the muscles managed to generate. His foot and leg felt as if they were tearing themselves in half. How much worse would it be if I’d been shot? Josh asked himself.
The question did nothing to help him relax. The despair he’d chased earlier began to creep back, stealing around him like a fog in late fall. He lowered himself to the ground, flat on his back at the side of the road, eyes closed, willing his muscles to loosen.
As he lay there, trying not to writhe, Josh heard a sound rising over the buzz and peep of the insects. It was a mechanical sound, an engine.
The trucks, he thought, farther ahead.
Then he heard something else, not mechanical, something moving at the edge of the road, sideswiping brush. It was only for a moment, but the sound put him back on alert, and gave his mind something else to concentrate on. Its subconscious grapple with his leg muscles eased ever so slightly; Josh held his breath and pushed himself off the road and back into the jungle.
Footsteps approached. Men were walking a few yards away, coming up the road, talking.
He lay in the bushes, trying not to breathe. The men continued by, walking north on the road about twenty more yards before stopping. They spoke in low whispers. Josh couldn’t have understood what they were saying in any event, but their voices gave him something to concentrate on. He listened as they turned and started walking back toward him, then past again.
They’d been gone a good seven or eight minutes before he sat back upright. He’d have to stay off the road, he decided, at least for a while. The jungle was comparatively sparse here, easier to move through than what he’d passed earlier in the day.
Though no longer cramped, his leg remained stiff as he slipped through the jungle, pushing the brush away branch by branch. He moved uphill, passing through a stand of waist-high ferns turned silver by the moonlight angling down through the gaps in the trees. Despite the slope, the ground was soggy; an underground stream pooled up nearby, running off toward the road.
The wet ground made a sucking noise as he lifted his boots. He had to walk ever slower to keep quiet.
Finally he managed to get beyond the pool, tracking almost due west, walking away from where he thought the road was. But soon the sounds of the trucks he’d heard were closer, straight ahead — the road, he realized as he stopped and listened, must join with the highway here.
There weren’t many highways in this part of Vietnam, and Josh thought this must be the same road the expedition had camped along. If that was true, he could simply follow it and find his way back. It would be a long journey, but doable.
The small burst of optimism faded quickly as he heard voices ahead. They were shouting and arguing.
Josh got down, hiding behind the trees. If it’s my time, he told himself, I won’t go like a coward. I won’t beg for my life
.
A truck engine revved. There were more shouts. Then he heard vehicles moving away.
Finally, with the sound gone, the jungle seemed to move back in as it left, as though the insects and animals had been waiting for the humans to leave.
I’m safe now, Josh thought to himself. Whoever they were, they’re gone.
I’m safe now. For a little while at least.
That was the last conscious thought he had for several hours, as he slipped off to sleep while sitting against the trees.
15
Beijing, China
Premier Cho Lai folded his arms. Vietnam lay before him, its lush, fertile valleys marked prominently on the large map spread over his desk.
Many centuries had passed since the land had been a Chinese kingdom. Soon it would be one again.
Vietnam’s oil, located mostly in the southern coastal waters, would be an immediate prize. Even more important were their rice paddies and fields, so lately favored by the weather. But what Cho Lai truly craved was the accomplishment of cutting down the haughty Vietnamese, leaving them groveling at his feet.
Just a month before, they had rejected the Chinese premier’s proposal of a mutual economic zone, an arrangement that, while tilted in China’s favor, would have been far better for them and their people than war.
Idiots.
Taking Vietnam would not be difficult. The army had studied the possibilities for years, modeling their present plan partly on America’s burst through Iraq in 2003.
The occupation, of course, would be different. The Americans had foolishly tried to use a light hand, where nothing but an iron fist would do the job. That, too, would be easy — anyone who did not like China’s benevolent rule could leave the country. As a corpse.
The trick would be keeping the rest of the world on his side long enough to at least prevent a military backlash. China’s investments in Europe, the Third World, and most especially the United States were a powerful argument for them not to interfere. But Cho Lai knew blackmail would not suffice. Weak as they were, the Westerners needed to feel as if they were doing the right thing.