by Larry Bond
“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 closed 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 taillights 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.
Hence tonight’s operation. The world would soon be convinced, and remain convinced, that he was acting righteously.
And after that—Japan. Korea. The rest of Indochina. Malaysia would finally be dealt with openly. The Philippines. He’d leave Australia—it was a dowdy, useless country.
The deal Vietnam had rejected would be offered to each of them.
They would see the wisdom of agreeing. Or be crushed. And then Cho Lai would be free to concentrate on his real goal: America.
There was a delicious irony in starting here, in Vietnam. He would succeed where the Americans had failed. It would be the first thing historians would notice when they wrote of his exploits in a thousand years.
The premier looked up from the map. His generals stared at him, waiting.
“Give the order to proceed,” he said. “And do it quickly, exactly as we have planned.”
16
Hanoi
Mara took a nap at the minihotel she’d called Bangkok from, then went back to the Star to shower. As she toweled off she checked the TV and the Internet connection. There was nothing on China, and the only hint she could find on the Google News Asian page—heavily censored, not just in Vietnam but throughout Asia—was a story from China quoting the premier on “outside aggressors,” but not mentioning Vietnam specifically.
It was still too early to get breakfast at the Star buffet, or at any restaurant catering to foreigners for that matter. A few blocks from the hotel, Mara found a man with a small cart of breakfast items; better-off locals would stop there on their way to work.
She waited her turn amid the small cluster of men, smiling but politely insisting that they take their turn instead of letting her jump ahead. She wasn’t just being polite; she was mentally practicing her Vietnamese.
When it was finally her turn, she repeated what the man before her had ordered. Her pronunciation was a bit stiff, and when the man asked her to repeat what she wanted, Mara simply pointed. S
he got a piece of meat tucked into a half roll of freshly baked French bread.
The meat looked like chicken but tasted gamy, overwhelming the jamlike sweet sauce spread like mayonnaise around it. Maybe it hadn’t been her pronunciation that bothered the vendor, but her choice of food.
Mara walked halfway down the block, then dumped the meat into the gutter. Then she began looking for a taxi.
“Airport?” she asked when she finally flagged one down.
The man looked puzzled.
“San bay,” she said in Vietnamese. “I need to go to the airport.”
“Yes, airport. I understand,” said the man, speaking in English. “But—bags?”
“I have business there,” she told him, getting in.
As they drove, Mara opened her pocketbook and took out one of the “clean” SIM cards she’d brought. She pried it into her cell phone and tried calling the scientist again. Once again she got his voice mail.
The UN agency that had sponsored the expedition was located in Brussels. Mara called the liaison officer there, claiming to be a relative trying to get in touch with the scientist. The man who answered had heard nothing from the expedition for more than two weeks. This wasn’t unusual, and he gave her the name and number of a Vietnamese government official who was supposed to be in contact with the scientists.
It was still two hours before the government offices would officially open, and though she tried the number, Mara wasn’t surprised when the official didn’t answer his phone. He didn’t have voice mail.
If Fleming was simply a day behind schedule, he’d expect to meet her at the restaurant tonight. In the meantime, she was going to go look for him—and see what was going on up near the Chinese border.
Assuming she could find a way to get up there. Driving would take too long. The distance itself wasn’t that far—roughly three hundred kilometers as the bird flew—but the roads were winding and notoriously bad; even with a skilled driver leaving at first light it could easily take all day just to go one way.
Flying was a much better option, but it was bound to be difficult. While Vietnam was no longer the strictly run authoritarian state it had once been, renting a plane or helicopter was still not an easy task. The first problem was language. Generally, this could be overcome by enough money, but while Mara practically cleared out an ATM inside the airport terminal, the thick wad of bills she flashed in front of the man inside the office of Pearl Air Surveying seemed only to confuse him.
