by Larry Bond
“No conditions,” said Behrens. “None.”
“A man that was held prisoner by us now wants to become our friend?”
“In the president’s view, Mr. Deputy, Vietnam is just the first of many states that will be attacked by the Chinese,” said Perry. “He wants to stop the attack here.”
“It has been a ferocious attack so far,” said Ba.
“And it’s going to get worse. We have an idea about where the Chinese are going,” added the general. “And we have a plan to stop them.”
“I see.”
Hai Ba listened as Perry and the ambassador outlined what other things American aid would mean — and what it wouldn’t mean. No loss of Vietnamese sovereignty, no large formations of American troops on its soil. America would be a guest, a helpful guest, ready to leave when requested.
And in exchange?
“In exchange you stop these bastards here, now,” said Perry. “It’s a fair deal for us. A very fair deal.”
The deputy soon excused himself, presumably to report back to his boss. A succession of army officials joined them for discussions that were basically variations of the one they had had with Ba: generalities, never specifics. Zeus was mostly an observer during these conversations, and an unimportant one at that.
Not one of the Vietnamese asked what sort of plan the Americans thought would stop the Chinese. Perry mentioned several times that he had brought along “experts” who had studied the Chinese tactical situation; each time the Vietnamese nodded politely before moving on to other subjects.
Deputy Ba reappeared about two hours later. Zeus noticed for the first time that he was walking with a limp. Looking at his leg, Zeus realized that there was a bandage or a brace on it.
“The premier would be pleased if you could see him,” Ba said.
“It would be my pleasure.”
The jeep and bus were waiting out front.
“Nothing like treating VIPs in style,” said Christian.
A police car had been added to the convoy. Its siren rebounded off the buildings as they sped through the center of town. Whole blocks had been wiped out, reduced to nothing but rubble, while the next street appeared completely unscathed.
“They’ll get the rest tonight,” said Christian. “Hopefully we’ll be out of here by then.”
The Vietnamese took them a few miles south of the city, past a suburban section to an area of farms. They passed a large military base, where soldiers were mustering into trucks and armored vehicles; they sped by so fast Zeus didn’t get a good enough look to guesstimate how big the unit was.
Two miles farther down, they veered off the highway onto a dirt road. It looked like a mistake — the area ahead was an open field. Two motorcycles raced out of nowhere, overtaking them as if they were standing still. Two more appeared, slowing and flanking the military vehicles at the front of the convoy. As the land dipped down, a wall topped by barbed wire came into view. There were warning signs in front of the wall: the area was mined. The wall itself was lined with soldiers and flanked by two tanks, both of them ancient T-54’s.
Passing through a pair of gates, the convoy swerved slowly in an S pattern around a set of concrete barriers designed to slow a would-be suicide bomber. A second wall, this one much higher and also topped by barbed wire, sat beyond the first. A pair of men held open the gate at its center.
Zeus counted more than thirty men standing on his side of the road after they passed through the gate. Mobile antiair missiles and guns were positioned around a wide dirt courtyard. A half dozen small, low-slung buildings sat in the middle of the dust.
The structures were entrances to an underground bunker complex. Far from elaborate, they consisted of large concrete slabs that sheltered wide stairways. These steps, about twice as wide as the bus Perry’s party had taken, ended in a narrow hall that had a passage at the side leading downward. The passage was so narrow only one person could go down at a time.
A pair of guards waited at the bottom of the ramp. Each one of the Americans was checked for weapons with a detector rod.
‘‘Your communication devices will not work here,” Hai Ba told them, watching as the checks were completed. “Just so you know.”
“Of course,” said Perry.
“The nonessential members of your party should stay behind,” added the deputy minister, glancing at the four Delta Force sergeants who were part of the security team. Perry told Ford that only officers would accompany him to the meeting. Ford nodded without comment; the order meant that only he would stay with Perry.
While Perry was still making all of the expected diplomatic noises, Zeus could tell the general was starting to get a little annoyed. This was even more obvious at the next security station, which was down another set of steps. Perry held his arms out with a frown Zeus recognized from their war games; he was probably one bad poke away from losing his patience.
The ambassador made a joke that the security was almost as bad as going to a Washington Nationals game. Perry didn’t laugh.
They were led to yet another set of stairs, these much wider. The stairwell had low-energy fluorescents that gave it a pure white glow, almost surrealistic under the circumstances.
A tall man dressed in a Western-style business suit met them at the base of the stairs. He was the foreign minister, and after greeting them he began talking to Behrens in Vietnamese. Despite the circumstances, both smiled broadly, chatting as they walked down the hall.
A thin industrial-style carpet covered the floor; the walls and floor of the passage were smooth concrete. A single steel door sat at the far end of the hall. A guard, armed with a Russian-made submachine gun, stood at attention in front of it. He moved to the side as they approached, watching the Americans warily.
The room behind the door looked like a staff room, dominated by two large tables pushed together. Simple wooden chairs were arranged around them; the chairs were slightly askew, as if a meeting had broken up a short while ago and no one had had a chance to put them back in place. There was nothing on the walls: no maps, no charts, no whiteboards or projection equipment. The only thing breaking the monotony of the dull white concrete was two doors on either side of the room. Both were solid steel, gray and featureless.
The foreign minister gestured to one side of the table. General Perry and the ambassador took seats at the center. Zeus, Christian, and Candy sat to their left; Perry’s translator and Captain Ford sat to the right. Zeus was closest to the door.
The foreign minister sat opposite them.
“Tell me now why you’ve come,” said the foreign minister. His English was not quite as sharp as the deputy defense minister’s, the accent heavy.
Perry repeated basically the same speech that he had given earlier. He was about halfway through when one of the doors behind them opened.
The foreign minister rose; the Americans followed his lead. Zeus turned and saw Vietnam’s premier, Lein Thap, shuffling around the side of the room, walking slowly to the Vietnamese side of the table. He was an old man, well past seventy, and his gray hair and stoop made him appear almost ghostlike.
Perry began recounting his offer, this time beginning with the president’s pledge. Their translator went to work, putting each of Perry’s sentences into Vietnamese. Thap raised his finger after only a few words.
“Yes, sir?” said the general.
“I know of your president, and have met him,” said the premier, speaking in Vietnamese. “He was our prisoner during the war.”
“Yes, sir,” said the general after the words were translated.
“The United States has been China’s ally for many years now.”
“America is a trading partner with China,” interjected the ambassador, first in Vietnamese and then in English. “Just as we are partners with Vietnam. We have no defense or aid agreements with the Chinese.”
The premier let the comment pass. Perry continued, laying out what the U.S. could do, gesturing toward Zeus to say that a series o
f suggestions had been prepared as well as intelligence.
“The strategy has been extensively gamed,” added Perry. “We are confident of its success.”
Zeus winced internally at the exaggeration.
“What does “gamed” mean?” asked the Vietnamese foreign minister in English. “The translation is… difficult.”
“Tested. By computer,” said Perry.
The foreign minister leaned close to the premier, whispering the explanation in his ear. If the premier was impressed — or even moved at all — it didn’t show on his face.
If the Vietnamese turned down U.S. assistance, what would happen next?
Zeus hadn’t even thought that possible. Surely the Vietnamese wanted help. But as he studied the premier’s expression, he realized that they might not.
If the Vietnamese were overrun, every other country in Asia would think there was nothing to be gained by opposing the Chinese at all; capitulation would at least spare their people immediate pain.
And then Zeus realized they might be overrun in any event. What happened then?
“It is a strong man who can help those who were once his enemy,” said the premier finally He looked at Zeus. “You will speak to General Trung. If he believes he can use your help, he will do so.”
4
Northwestern Vietnam
Josh walked behind Mara and Mạ, urging them on as gently as he could, until finally he decided that they were far enough away from the road and possible pursuers that he could lead the way. He slipped between them, carrying Mạ for a few hundred meters before setting her back down and urging her to keep up.
Pulling Mara away from the burning wreck seemed to have given him new energy. Or maybe it had restored his pride, weakened by the ordeal in the mine shaft. He’d been ready to die there — he hadn’t cared anymore.
Despair was the one unforgivable sin, he’d always thought; he hadn’t despaired that day long ago when his parents had been murdered. It was the most important lesson he’d gained, a hard-earned one. But now it seemed the line was not precise — one moment of weakness did not eliminate the sum of who he was and what he did. He was a survivor, not a victim, a man who tried to do something rather than giving up. Even when it had seemed hopeless, he had tried to go out with action rather than lying down. And that was a better, more precise measure of real despair.
The jungle closed in as they walked, until the vegetation became so thick that the stream was nearly impossible to see. The water gradually turned from a narrow channel perhaps six inches deep to a mushy, widespread marsh marked by a few rocks and dead trees.
Bugs swarmed thickly over the narrow swamp. Josh had become so used to the insects that usually he barely noticed them, but these swarms were impossible to ignore. They got into his eyes and nose, his mouth when he opened it. Finally, he decided they had no choice but to leave the soggy ground. This wasn’t easy — pushing through the weeds and brush felt like pushing through a foam-filled room. A bush would give way to a thicker bush; a momentary hole would lead to a tree trunk. Once they were away from the worst of the insects, Josh tried to move parallel to the stream, but after a while had to give it up and go where the jungle was thinnest.
“We stop here,” said Mara when they finally broke into a small clearing around three large intertwined trees. “Rest.”
“We have to keep moving,” said Josh. “They’re probably following.”
“We stop and figure out where the hell we are,” she told him. “And we need to rest.”
Josh looked down at Mạ. She had a vacant expression on her face, a desperate blankness.
“You’re right. We should stop,” he said.
He crouched next to Mạ and gestured that she should sit. He sat down against the nearby tree, patting the ground next to him, but Mạ remained standing.
Mara leaned against the tree, looking upward. “I think I can climb this,” she said.
“I thought you were tired.”
She frowned but then started upward, slowly at first but gradually gaining speed.
Josh recognized her type — college jock, probably played soccer, a tomboy who felt like a fish out of water once graduation came around. She’d probably looked into joining the army, then settled on the spy business. Maybe she was gay. Most likely.
Not that it was an issue. He wasn’t attracted to her in any event.
He looked at the bushes, examining the leaves. If it had been a different time of year, they’d be full of berries and there’d be nuts on the trees — they’d have something to eat.
“There’s a hill about a half mile that way,” Mara told him as she slid back down to the ground. “There are a lot of trees. The ground should be a little easier to move through.”
“Are they following us?”
“I couldn’t see them. Doesn’t mean they’re not.”
“Do you have your phone?”
“That’s about all I have.”
“Are you going to call for help?” Josh asked.
“The only help we’re likely to get was shooting it out with the Chinese back at the road,” said Mara. “And if they were homing in on you, they may be able to home in on me. Come on — if they’re following us, it will be easy for them to see the trail we cut through the brush.”
“We didn’t cut a trail.”
“The vegetation was pushed to the side. Look — it’s pretty easy to see the way we’ve gone.”
She was right. Josh got up and took Mạ by the hand, following as Mara led the way to the hill she’d seen. For a while, the brush was just as thick as before, maybe even thicker. But after nearly twenty minutes they began moving uphill. As the incline steepened, the vegetation began to thin out.
The summit was an uneven saddle framed by a group of young trees. The land to the south had been clear-cut of timber within the past two or three years; rotted carcasses of trees that had been taken down but not harvested dotted the new growth. A rutted logging trail meandered off to the southeast.
Mara climbed another of the trees to try and scout the area, but the thin trunk bent before she was high enough to get much of a view.
“All right. I’ll check in,” Mara told Josh after she shimmied down. She took out her phone and walked a few yards away.
Josh debated whether to follow her, and decided he should. She frowned but said nothing to him as the call went through.
“Yeah, it’s me. A whole shitload of trouble,” she told whoever was on the other side of the line. “The Chinese had helicopters. Jimmy’s people got mixed up in the firelight. We split up. I have the scientist. He’s got a kid with him. What can you do for us?”
Josh folded his arms in front of his chest. He didn’t like the way she’d mentioned Mạ, as if he’d been expected to make a business presentation and had shown up with a kid in tow.
Mara turned to him, apparently in response to a question from whoever was on the line.
“You do have the tape, right?” she asked.
“I got it.”
“We’re good,” she told the phone.
She listened some more.
“All right,” she said finally. “We’ll try.”
“What are we going to try?” asked Josh after she hung up abruptly.
“To stay alive. Come on. That trail leads to a road, and there’s a deserted village a mile off it that the Chinese haven’t occupied yet.”
“How do you know?”
“I just had them look at a satellite image. Come on.”
5
Washington, D.C.
President Greene glanced across the Oval Office at a portrait of one of his predecessors before taking the call. He’d ordered the painting of FDR placed where he could see it a few months before. Never a big Roosevelt admirer, he’d come to appreciate the Democrat more and more over the past year.
“Mrs. Prime Minister, thank you for returning my call,” President Greene told Ivory Chatham as he retrieved the British prime minister from hold.
“I trust you’re well.”
“Tolerably well,” she told him. “The weather here has been just awful. Even for England.”
“I’m sorry to hear.” Mandatory chitchat finished, Greene plunged into the reason he’d placed the call. “I’ve been speaking to both my secretary of state and my national security adviser about your concerns.”
“I’m going to save you the embarrassment, George,” said the prime minister, cutting him short. “His Majesty’s government is not currently in a position to help you on the resolution.”
Greene stifled a growl. “Why not?”
“I’m sorry, George. The financial situation is very difficult here.”
“You’re not going to succumb to blackmail, are you? This is a critical point. Crucial.”
“I know. The financial situation is very precarious right now,” added Chatham. “And I’m afraid that my government would not be able to sustain a challenge.”
“I hadn’t realized the situation was so… precarious.” Greene shifted in his chair. Part of the problem, he believed, was that Chatham faced a no-confidence vote in the Parliament in a few days. She had barely survived the last, and undoubtedly didn’t want to do anything to tip more votes against her.
“It’s the bonds, George. The Chinese have been very clear that they will withdraw their deposits.”
“They’ve hinted the same to us. It will hurt them more than us. Certainly in the long run.”
“You’re not in the position I am. And frankly, the Chinese have public sentiment on their side. People think the Vietnamese are getting what they deserve. I’m surprised that’s not the case in your country.”
It probably was, though Greene had made it a point to avoid looking at any public opinion polls on the matter.
“People have seen the photos the Chinese have spread around,” added the prime minister. “I know what you’ve said about them, but they’re very convincing. Very, very convincing.”
“What if we had proof that the Chinese staged the entire incident? That the Vietnamese never launched an attack.”