by Larry Bond
Police and military vehicles were parked in front of the luxury hotels and fancy houses that filled the lakeshore area. Spotlights had been set up on the causeway that divided the larger lake from Truch Bac Lake; they wagged back and forth across the sky, illuminating only a few wispy clouds that seemed to struggle to stay out of their grasp.
So far, Mara hadn’t seen any destruction up close. But cutting south toward the Star Hotel she passed into an area of older houses, several of which were on fire. The tops of three roofs burned almost as one, flames licking up the sides as black smoke curled from under the eaves. The black looked like bunting, underlining the red and yellow dancing above. Since the buildings themselves hadn’t been damaged, Mara guessed that the fires had been set by antiaircraft shells falling to earth. But that wouldn’t matter much to the people whose houses they were. There were no fire trucks nearby, no hoses or even bucket brigades; the residents stood on one side of the street, watching as the flames fed on the dry wood.
The Citadel and the surrounding area were blocked off, heavily though somewhat haphazardly guarded by soldiers. Many of the men were not in full uniform. Mara kept her head down as she rode with the traffic detouring away.
A few blocks from the hotel, the motorcycle began pulling back, as if it had lost its will to continue. The problem was purely physical—Mara had nearly run it out of gas. She tried moving to the side of the street as it stalled out, but there were too many bicycles and people closely together. Seeing a small opening, she pulled right, only to be nearly flattened by a bus that had tried cutting out from several car lengths behind.
Mara coasted to a stop on the sidewalk. She was going to dump the motorbike there, but as she started to slip off she realized it might be her only means of leaving the city. She picked it back up and began walking, looking for a safe place to leave it.
Bicyclists passed on both sides. She was right next to the curb, but that didn’t seem to have an effect on which direction they took. Sometimes they would jump up onto the narrow sidewalk, ducking through and sometimes into the crowd there, then cut back directly in front of her. Several bumped up against her. Mara looked in the face of one of the riders after he poked his elbow into her side. His eyes were dazed, his mouth slack. He wasn’t even worth cursing at.
Two soldiers with automatic rifles were standing in front of the Star Hotel. Several uniformed security people were just inside the lobby door. Unsure whether the soldiers were there for protection or to keep foreigners from leaving, Mara walked her bike past, continuing down the street.
She found the intersection blocked off with sawhorses and a pair of police motorcycles. She turned back around, mixing in with a group of Vietnamese workers, some on bikes, some on foot, and went back in the direction of the hotel.
As she neared it, she decided that the soldiers had probably been posed there in case the locals decided that the foreigners were somehow involved in the bombings. But she didn’t want to take the chance of becoming a prisoner there, not even for the sake of a warm, perfumed bath, so she kept walking.
The crowd took her in the direction of the Hien Lam, the hotel where the Belgian scientist was supposed to have been staying. When she didn’t see any soldiers or policemen outside, Mara decided the Hien Lam would be as good as any other hotel. She wheeled her bike down the alley at the back, where she found a small lean-to about half filled with other motorcycles, scooters, and bicycles. She propped hers against the wall, then went inside.
The sole clerk on duty stood on the steps in front of the hotel door, a small pile of cigarettes on the concrete next to him. He stared at the sky, seemingly oblivious to everything around him. Mara had to wave her hand in front of his face to get his attention.
“I need a room,” she told him.
He shook his head.
“I know you have vacancies.”
“Too early, lady. Come back two p.m.”
Mara reached up and under her dress for some of the cash in her pocket. She did it without thinking—she was after all wearing pants—but it had more of an effect on the clerk than her hundred-dollar bribe. His face flushed, then flushed again as she pressed the bill into his hand.
“No business here.”
“I’m not interested in business,” she told him. “Get me a room.”
He looked at the hundred-dollar bill. It revived him.
“Room, yes,” he said, leading her back inside.
Shown to her room, Mara went straight to the bathroom, not even bothering to check for bugs—without her electronic detector, she could never be sure a room like this was clean.
Her face was filthy and scratched, though not as badly as she had feared. The blood was clotted on one side of her nose. Her hair, though short, was a tangled, frizzled mess: a werewolf would have been proud.
She washed up as best she could, then went to find a place to call Bangkok from.
3
Washington, D.C.
Zeus Murphy’s head felt as if it were going to spin itself right off his shoulders. So much had happened—was happening—in the past few hours that his brain couldn’t process anything anymore.
But here he was, standing in the national security adviser’s smaller-than-he’d-expected office in the White House West Wing, telling him and the president’s chief of staff, Dickson Theodore, how and why China was tearing through western Vietnam.
“If I were running the operation”—it was important to keep adding a disclaimer to make it clear that he wasn’t clairvoyant—“I’d sweep in under Hanoi, cut the north off, then go for the south. Once I’m into the middle of the country, I have highways, I have infrastructure—I’ll have an easy time of it. It won’t really matter how I got there. I don’t want to bother with Hanoi if I don’t have to. That’s where their defenses are. If I had come down the east coast, where everyone expected—say Route 1—I’d have much better roads, but I’d also have to deal with half the Vietnamese army. Out here, my main problem is traffic control.”
“I wouldn’t make light of that,” said the national security adviser, Walter Jackson. “Logistics are the key to any battle.”
Murphy fought to keep a smile from forming on his lips. It was always amusing when civilians tried to talk about military theory with a few chestnuts they’d picked up from PowerPoint lectures. The problem was they couldn’t quite get those chestnuts into the proper context.
“If the Chinese were battling us, or even the Russians,” he told Jackson, “then they’d have to be worried—very worried. But they’re not fighting us. They’re fighting Vietnam. It has a small and largely unprepared army. There’s a lot of margin for error.”
“Whose error? The Chinese? Or ours?” came a voice behind him.
Murphy turned, then immediately jumped to his feet.
“Mr. President.”
“At ease, Major.” Greene looked at Jackson and Theodore. “I wanted to hear this for myself. Where’s Ms. Mai?”
“She’s down the hall on the phone with the Pentagon,” said Jackson. “She heard all this already. That’s why she brought him back with her.”
The president leaned back against the wall and folded his arms in front of his chest. He looked like a college professor quizzing a young freshman.
And Murphy felt like that freshman, and not a particularly cocky one, as he continued explaining what he thought the Chinese had in mind—a lightning strike to sweep around the Vietnamese capital, then a second phase to the attack to take the rest of the country.
“I could see them going through Laos. Or landing somewhere in the south. Maybe both.”
He pointed to the map on Jackson’s desk, jabbing his finger at the yellow amoeba in the center that represented Hanoi.
“In three or four days, maybe even less, they can be down in Quang Tri Province. From there, the country is effectively cut in half. Then they can take their time. My guess is that they save Hanoi for last. All of the Vietnamese troops are concentrated up here, on their border at t
he northeast. The Vietnamese might be able to pull them down to Hanoi, but never to Saigon. Excuse me, Ho Chi Minh City.”
“Saigon is fine,” said Greene. “Even the Vietnamese call it that among themselves.”
“The south is what they really want,” said Zeus. “Because of the agriculture and the oil off the coast. But they have to take Hanoi eventually. They could even offer a deal. Your lives for tribute. Something like that.”
“How do you stop them?” asked the president.
“I’m not sure you can,” admitted Zeus. “I haven’t seen the intelligence, Mr. President.”
Zeus did have a few ideas, starting with immediately destroying the road network in and around Quang Tri Province—including Highway 28 in Laos. Shifting forces south immediately by aircraft and ship, rather than waiting for an attack that would never come, might also help.
The president nodded as he spoke.
“All of this might only slow them down,” said Zeus. “But, uh, from our point of view, that’s probably the best we could hope for. You know, kind of a diplomatic opening?”
“Slow them down.” Greene pushed himself off the wall and bent over the map. “How long can they hold out without help?”
“I wouldn’t want to guess.”
“How long did they hold out in the simulation you ran?” asked Jackson.
“Well, we, uh, we won that. So I guess you’d say they held out forever.”
The others exchanged glances. President Greene looked as if he was trying to suppress a smile.
He looked shorter in person than he did on TV, and thinner, but only a little less intense.
“Usually, any side opposing China loses,” added Zeus. “It’s, uh, I guess the odds are pretty much against you.”
“Major, how did you happen to pick Vietnam to war-game for?” asked Greene.
“It’s kind of a long story, sir, but basically I was told that was the force I was to play for. So I followed orders.”
“You think you could win if you were the Chinese?”
“Oh, that’s not a problem, sir. I can always figure something out.”
“Good.” Greene turned to his chief of staff. “Get him on the task force, get him out there. It’s all right—I’ll call the chief of staff myself. I’m sure she’ll see it my way.”
Zeus knew his future had just been decided for him—dramatically decided. He started to stammer a thank-you.
“It wasn’t my idea,” the president told him. “I agree with it, but the head of the task force asked for you personally.”
“Uh, who—”
“Harland Perry,” said Greene. “I believe you already know the general. He’s an old friend of mine. I think you’ll get along with him pretty well.”
4
Beijing
For all his education, the French ambassador had never taken the time to learn Chinese. They had to conduct the interview in French. Cho Lai, rising from the red couch where he had received him, looked at him now in contempt.
“What you say is certainly important,” said the Chinese premier. “But Vietnam has been the aggressor, and we must defend our territory. It would be the same if a part of France were attacked. You would not react lightly—or you would find yourself in the situation you were in when the German tanks came in 1940.”
“This is not 1940,” said the ambassador quietly.
“Very true. And we will not allow it to become a replay of that time. We are not enemies,” added Cho Lai, softening his tone. “The Chinese are very large investors in France. Just last week, we were awarded two new seats on the board of Groupe Caisse d’Epargne. I received a framed cycling shirt as a souvenir. Très bien, eh?”
Groupe Caisse d’Epargne was one of the largest banking groups in France. China had been “awarded” the seats in exchange for not pulling out its deposits—a move that would not only have sent the firm into bankruptcy, but undoubtedly crashed the French economy.
“Of course,” said the ambassador. “But aggression—”
“This is not aggression. I’ve shown you proof.” Cho Lai waved his hand, and returned to the couch. “A resolution in the Security Council condemning China would not be helpful to our interests. Or to yours, in the long run.”
The ambassador hesitated, but then said the words Cho Lai had been waiting to hear.
“We would veto any resolution condemning our good friend China,” said the ambassador. “So long as the situation is as you say.”
Clearly, he was following his government’s wishes, not his own—but that was of no consequence.
“Then there is no problem for any of us,” said Cho Lai. “This entire matter will pass in a week or two. The Vietnamese will come to their senses, and everything will be finished. Fine. Let me call for tea.”
5
Western Vietnam
With Lai Châu taken, the Chinese army began concentrating on its next major target farther south, the Na San airbase. Trucks and tanks raced nonstop down Route 107 to Route 6 in broad daylight, moving into position. Temporary forward airbases—little more than landing pads bulldozed from farm fields—were constructed to help support the assault.
Na San had played a critical role in Vietnam’s liberation from the French. Attacked by Giap during the campaign that led to the Battle of Dien Bien Phu, it was ultimately held by the French after considerable bloodshed. But the French misinterpreted their victory there, and made the grave mistake of using the Na San victory as a model for their defense of Dien Bien Phu. It was an error on par with the Germans’ decision to take and then hold Stalingrad, with similar results.
Jing Yo had considered the Na San and Dien Bien Phu battles carefully. His unit’s job—much more critical than at Lai Châu—was to seize the control tower at the Na San airport, and use it to direct the large assault group into the base. The defenses ringing the airport, while not extensive, would now be on high alert. Jing Yo had to bypass them, sneak into the tower, then hold on while all hell broke lose.
The easiest way to do this would have been to get onto the airport grounds before the invasion was launched; the team would have then had an easy time overcoming the guards and getting into the tower. And indeed this had been the original plan. But the assignment of the other tasks had made this impossible, and so Jing Yo had adapted.
Shortly after the battle for Lai Châu ended, a small helicopter skimmed in over the tree-lined streets, heading for a spot on the road just north of the bridge Jing Yo and his men had managed to hold. The helicopter was a warhorse from another era—a Bell Huey UH-1, the same type that the American army had used to great effect farther south some fifty years before.
This particular chopper had not seen action in the Vietnam-American war, and until roughly six months earlier it had been rusting forgotten in a boneyard in the Philippines. The men who had renovated it had found its Lycoming engine dilapidated beyond repair, and had replaced the power plant with a Harbin design nearly twice as powerful, though it had a considerable distance to go before it could prove itself as dependable as the venerable Lycoming. They had also chipped away all of the rust, replaced the rodent-chewed wires with new ones, and given the pilots an avionics system that would have seemed like something out of Star Trek to the helicopter’s early crews.
Most important, they had dressed the helicopter in the dull gray camouflaged tones favored by the transport division of the Vietnamese air force, topping the image off with a yellow star in a red circle and bar field used by the Vietnamese air force. The helicopter looked exactly like the two old Hueys still used by the Vietnamese air force in the area to the south.
After picking up Jing Yo and his squad, the helicopter flew south to the Ta Sua Nature Preserve, settling down in an isolated clearing several kilometers from the nearest road. The idea was that Jing Yo and his men would get some rest while the main assault elements got closer to the objective.
But sleep didn’t come easy to the young lieutenant. The attack on the scientists’ camp
and the ferocious battle at Lai Châu had unsettled his internal balance. He knew from experience that he could restore it only through meditation, and so, after urging his men to rest, he walked a short distance up a nearby hill and began to meditate. Legs folded, he began to breathe slowly and deeply, pushing up from his diaphragm. His mind hesitated, still filled with distractions. Jing Yo concentrated on the muscles in his stomach, pushing his mind into the tendons as he had been taught at age sixteen. Then he lifted his hands to the sides of his body, moving them upward in a circular motion.
Ego was a stubborn master. His mind remained distracted. Images of the battle passed back and forth in his head. The sensations of doubt, of weakness, of dishonor, drifted through his consciousness.
He and his men had done well; their objectives had been met. Yet the ego would not be satisfied. The ego wished perfection, wanted glory and accolades so overwhelming that no mortal man could hope to enjoy them.
Ego had always been his problem, from the very moment the monks took him in. “Stubbornness,” his first mentor called it.
Stubbornness.
But the universe was around him, and so long as he could breathe, he could find balance. So long as he could feel the muscles in his chest expand and contract, the toxins infecting his mind would drift back into the void.
Jing Yo lost track of time.
That was the first sign. He felt the warm breeze tickling his tongue; that was the second.
And then there were no signs, no thoughts, only breathing, and finally, balance.
The wind blew lightly through the trees to the east, rustling through the branches like whispers drifting down a hallway. Jing Yo let the wind push into his lungs, its energy rekindling his.
Gradually, he became aware of another presence nearby, watching him through the long blades of grass on the slope from the wooded area. The rising sun made it hard for him to see, the sharp rays blurring and glaring as they struck the green slope.
It was black, dark, moving toward him slowly.
