by Larry Bond
Her next stop was in a town about five miles away. Parking the truck, she found a small shop and bought several pairs of men’s clothes and a cap for her hair. She also got two peasant-style dresses, and a basket for lunch. She had just gotten the basket filled and climbed back in the cab when the satellite phone buzzed.
“Hey, Bangkok, how we doing?” she asked, holding the phone against her ear with her shoulder as she put the truck in gear.
“How are you doing, Mara?”
“DeBiase! They have you back on the communications desk, Million Dollar Man?”
“I requested it specifically so I could talk to you,” DeBiase told her. “Where are you exactly?”
“You’re not tracking me?”
“You have to transmit for thirty seconds,” he told her. “But yes, we are. It was mostly a figure of speech, like hello.”
“Hello. I’m near Hoa Binh,” she told him. “I want to stay south of the Red River for a few miles. I think there are more troops on that side of the river.”
“How far north can you be by tonight?”
“China if I have to be.”
“Pick a place farther south, and hopefully a little safer.”
“I was thinking of Nam Det, if there aren’t many troops in the way.”
“Hmmm.”
“Are you looking at the satellites? What do they say?”
“The latest satellite says there are no troops there. The Chinese still haven’t come across the border at Lao Cai.”
“Maybe they won’t.”
“Don’t bet on it. Nam Det … You’d have to go up Route 70.”
“I’d planned on it—if there aren’t a lot of checkpoints.”
DeBiase began clicking through information screens on the computer in front of him. Besides satellite data, the U.S. now had Global Hawk UAVs patrolling to provide real-time information on what was going on.
“There are two points I’d steer you around, darling. One is Phan Luong, which the Vietnamese are using as a mustering point for their reserves in Tuyên Quang. The other is farther north, near the Thac Ba Reservoir. That one’s the problem—there are no alternate roads unless you go through Yen Bar.”
“I can do that.”
“I don’t think so—the Chinese are bombing it right now. The analysts seem to think they’ll attack and occupy it tonight.”
Mara tried visualizing Vietnam in her head. The rivers that cut southward were flanked by mountains; her route back to Nam Det was in the shadow of the Con Voi Mountains, between the Chay River and the Hong. The Da River valley, farther to the west—and on the other side of the Hoang Lien Son Mountains—was the main route of the Chinese advance, though no one expected them to stay there very long.
“I think my best bet will be to BS my way past the checkpoint at Tuyên Quang,” she told him. “The question is when.”
She looked at her watch. Assuming she could keep her speed of fifty kilometers an hour—an iffy proposition, admittedly—she’d be at the checkpoint no later than five p.m., just as dusk was falling.
“Can you get past?” asked DeBiase.
“Sure. I’ve gotten by two already. I just tell them I’m a nun.”
“That works?”
“They don’t know me very well.”
Mara asked DeBiase if he could arrange an equipment drop; she needed a backup radio, batteries, and most of all ammunition. DeBiase told her he’d have to work on it. Two hours later, he called back to tell her Lucas had wangled an unmanned aerial vehicle to drop the gear on the field at Nam Det just before dawn.
Assuming she could get there.
“We’ll know in an hour,” Mara told DeBiase. “If that roadblock at Tuyên Quang is still there.”
“It is. The Vietnamese are telling people in some of the villages near the Chinese border to leave and go south. You’ll be running into refugees soon.”
“I’ll try not to hit them.”
“Yeah.”
“That was a joke, Jess. You’re losing your sense of humor.”
“I know.”
Figuring she would be stopped at Tuyên Quang, Mara decided to try and polish her image. She used a needle and thread to sew a makeshift cross out of sheets on the top of the truck, but didn’t have enough left over for the sides. She had only a few boxes of supplies—a pathetic effort if she really was working for a relief group. Mara rearranged a few things, but there was only so much she could do, and when she climbed back into the cab and put the truck in gear, she felt even less confident than before.
A half hour later, Mara saw the first refugees walking along the road. They were a family of four, a mother and father with two children around seven and nine, a boy and a girl. Each carried a big bundle on his or her back. They didn’t look at her as she passed.
Mara thought they were an anomaly—the area had so far missed the fighting—but within a few minutes she saw more people, bunches of them, groups of ten and twelve. Most were on the side of the road, but here and there a group strayed onto the asphalt. Bicyclists were scattered among the walkers, most pedaling slowly and glumly alongside relatives or friends. By the time she’d gone another kilometer, the highway was flooded with people—old people, middle aged, children, some pulling carts, a few dragging bundles placed on pieces of wood and poles.
Another kilometer farther on and the road was almost impassable.
A few of the refugees stared at her as she drove, slowly, pressing forward against the tide. But most didn’t look at her at all; they looked at nothing but the black tar of the road, oozing up in the late-afternoon heat.
The steady flood of people overwhelmed a small village that straddled the highway. They seemed like ants climbing through the remains of a dead animal, moving forward. A few of the inhabitants stood in their doorways, jaws slack, unable to entirely comprehend what was going on.
North of the village, Mara found she could go fastest by straddling the edge of the highway and shoulder. People would move off the road more easily there, and she managed to get the truck to twenty kilometers an hour for several stretches. But she was constantly slowing down, often hitting the brake as an old person got stubborn in front of her, or a child didn’t pay enough attention. By the time she got close enough to Tuyên Quang to see the checkpoint, the sun had set.
Mara had wondered why she hadn’t seen any automobiles on the way up; she had assumed that it was because the area was so poor. Now she saw that the authorities were seizing all motor vehicles—cars, trucks, and motorbikes—at the checkpoint. Once stripped of their vehicle, the refugees were then literally pushed onto the road, told to go south. The entire area had apparently been ordered evacuated shortly after Mara set out from Hanoi.
Her truck was the only vehicle heading north, and at first as she drove up Mara thought she would just get right through, without even being stopped—the soldiers were focused on the cars and the refugees.
But as she passed into the bright glow of the spotlight illuminating the checkpoint area, an officer turned from the other lane and put up his hand.
Mara thought of ignoring him and simply driving on. But when she saw two soldiers step from the shadows ahead and shoulder their rifles, she downshifted and stopped.
“I have medicine for the orphanage at Nam Det,” she told the captain when he strode over. She used English, deciding that what she needed to say was too complicated for her Vietnamese. “I am with the Sisters of Charity. We have to get the children out safely.”
The captain either didn’t understand her English or didn’t care to soil his tongue with it.
“Why are you driving an army truck?” he asked in Vietnamese.
“General Tho gave it to us,” Mara said, switching to Vietnamese as well. “The soldiers who were supposed to guard me would go only as far as Vinh Yên. They left me on my own. They had to join the fighting. Maybe you could have some of your men assist me. There are many people who need help with the evacuation there. The little children—”
/> “Out of the truck!”
When Mara hesitated, the captain took out his pistol and pointed it at her. His two soldiers did the same with their rifles.
“I can get out,” said Mara, raising her hands and reaching for the door handle.
The captain pulled the door open.
“I’m a nun,” she said, holding up the cross.
The captain yanked her from the truck, throwing her on the ground.
If it had been just he and she, even with the gun, even with her cover story of being a nun, she would have jumped from the ground and thrown herself into his chest. He was a little rooster of a man, probably fifty pounds lighter than she was, and no match for her, especially if caught off guard.
He had a rooster face as well as body, a sharp nose that jutted prominently from his face—a target just waiting to be kicked in.
But he had the two soldiers nearby, and there were many others close by. Even if she escaped at first, she’d stand out in the city, and beyond.
What would a real nun do?
Pray to God to strike the bastard down.
And maybe cry, depending on the nun.
Mara had never been the weepy sort, but she forced herself to simper now, protesting about “God’s little children” who needed to be saved. The captain ignored her, ordering his men to search the truck.
Pushed aside, Mara tried calculating an escape route. There were too many soldiers around to give her good odds, though.
She could grab Rooster Face’s pistol and use him as a hostage.
Satisfying, but ultimately counterproductive. Best to keep with the cover story, play it through. Worst case they were going to send her south with the refugees. She might miss tonight’s drop, but that could be rescheduled.
No, worst case she could be arrested. That was a possibility, but probably a complication Rooster Face wouldn’t want to deal with.
Worst case was even worse than that. But she kept such possibilities locked off in a different part of her brain. No need to examine them now.
“Where are your orders?” the captain demanded as his men finished searching the cab, signaling with their hands that they had not found anything.
“Orders?”
“The general who gave you permission. Where are his orders?”
Mara had some trouble with the words and his accent. She thought at first that he simply meant her papers; she gave him her “safe” EU passport, which identified her as an Irish citizen. Mara had already rehearsed an excuse about why the passport didn’t call her “sister”—she was a prenovice, a special category of nuns in training who had not yet joined the novitiate.
“My passport,” she said, pushing it into the captain’s hands.
“Where are your orders?” repeated the captain, throwing the passport on the ground.
“The general did not give me orders. He gave me guards,” said Mara. “Soldiers.”
“And where are they?”
“They left me. I didn’t think it was my place to question them. I am a nun, not a soldier.”
“You are a foreign bloodsucker.”
Among the many sisters Mara had known growing up, one in particular had been stubborn and strong. A strict disciplinarian, Sister Jean Marie had been the scourge of the parochial school Mara attended until sixth grade. Mara imagined she was her now—a massive, if necessary, leap of imagination, but one that gave her a map to follow.
“I suck no blood,” she said, raising her head as she stiffened her spine, both literally and figuratively. “I am doing God’s work for the least fortunate.”
“God is a fairy tale,” answered the captain, adding several words that would probably have made Sister Jean Marie blush.
“The orphans are not fairy tales, and they do not care who feeds them. God or fairy tale,” said Mara. The Vietnamese words sprang into her head as she played the role, her confidence gaining. “These are poor children who must be saved from the Chinese devils.”
While the captain was not impressed by Mara’s religious claims, much less her pose as a nun, his two soldiers were clearly uncomfortable, shifting back and forth behind him. One of them looked particularly embarrassed, frowning and looking down at the ground whenever she glanced in his direction.
“We will repel the Chinese scum,” said the captain.
“I pray that you will.” Mara made a point of looking at his soldiers. “I thank God that you have such fine men in your command.”
This only made the captain more angry. He spun back to his men. “Have you searched the back of the truck? Get your lazy asses in there. Find out what this she-bitch has. Probably poison for the children.”
The soldiers rushed to comply. They opened the tailgate, then hauled the motorbike down. It slipped from their hands and bounced on the ground.
“And what does a nun do with a motorcycle!” thundered the captain.
“I needed a way to get to the general’s camp,” said Mara easily. She pushed her chin up, just as she imagined Sister Jean Marie would do. “One of our parishioners, a very humble and kind man, took pity on me when I said I would walk, and—”
“Silence! Every word you utter is a lie.”
The captain walked over to examine the motorbike. He picked it up, frowned at it, then let it drop back into the dirt. He ordered the soldiers to confiscate it.
Mara sensed a compromise was in the works—he was going to take the bike but let her go. The swap was okay with her—she’d make it up to its owner somehow.
The worst thing to do, though, would be to admit that the unspoken deal was a good one.
“Where are you going with the motorcycle?!” she shouted.
“Nuns have no need for such things,” answered the captain.
“It’s not ours. It is our parishioner’s. It is his only possession.”
“Then he should have been more careful with it.”
The captain walked away, striding toward a knot of other soldiers, who were interrogating the refugees. Mara waited for a second, then scooped up her passport and jumped in the truck, happy to have gotten off so cheaply.
9
Northwestern Vietnam
By dusk, Josh had walked another five or six kilometers, still roughly paralleling the road. There was a lot of activity on the highway, with trucks passing by at a furious rate. The few glimpses he’d caught convinced him they were all Chinese.
There were aircraft as well—jets high overhead and helicopters in the distance.
He was being followed. He knew it had to be the little girl he’d seen earlier, though she was very careful now about not getting close enough to let him see her. He heard noises in the brush, noises unlike those a deer or other animal would make, or a frog, or even the wind.
Pale green, with overly large black eyes, the frogs sat on the rocks and low plants, looking as if they were trying to decide which insect to pull out of the air next. Their color made them blur into the surroundings, and Josh didn’t notice them until one leaped almost into his face as he walked, spooked by the human’s approach. After that, the scientist realized the amphibians were all around him, occasionally scattering as he walked, but most often just sitting still, clacking in a low, guttural call, and staring.
It wasn’t until night began to fall that he realized he could eat the things.
The first frog he tried to catch hopped away into the brush, escaping easily. The second, which he tried to scoop off the ground in front of him a moment later, leaped up toward his hand, smacked against his open palm, and rebounded down against his leg. The live feel of the thing surprised him. It felt like a wet human biceps slapping against his hand. The webbed feet scratched gently at his flesh, the legs flailing awkwardly as he grabbed for them. The sensation was so odd that Josh stared at his hand as the frog went free.
It should have been easy, considering what he had done to the man whose rifle he had, and yet it was hard, very hard.
He was thrust back into his precollege days, biology
class in high school, dissecting a frog. They’d tried injecting adrenaline into the thing to see what it would do to its heart.
One of the girls had complained that they were being cruel to animals. The teacher agreed.
If I think like that, I might just as well lie down and die right now. I’m not a scientist, I’m a survivor.
A few meters farther on, he saw two frogs sitting within two feet of each other at the side of the trail, separated by a pair of leaves from one of the plants. Singling out the frog on the right, Josh lowered himself in front of it.
I’m a survivor.
He raised his hand, then began to extend it. When he was about ten inches from the frog, it leapt to the left, escaping easily. Instead of swatting after it, he turned to catch the other one, spotted it in midair, and swung his hand. Much to his surprise, he grabbed the animal. It started to squirm, pushing its head out of his fist until he held it by only one leg.
Josh tightened his grip, clamping his hand against the squirmy skin. Then he swung his hand down, hammerlike, dashing the frog’s head against the ground.
He hadn’t meant to kill it, just get it to stop squirming. The blow split the creature’s skull. Blood and the gray ooze of brains spilled out.
Josh felt like he was going to get sick—like he had to get sick. He twisted around and put his hands on his knees, ready to retch. But nothing came out.
I have to survive, he told himself. I’m going to survive.
The next one was easier, and the one after that easier still. He caught ten frogs in all, dashing their brains out and piling them at the end of a small clearing about a hundred meters from the road. He brought some twigs together to make a fire, then decided he was too close to the road. He pulled up his shirt, put the dead frogs in it as if he were a kangaroo, and walked through the jungle until he found another clearing, this one with several clumps of dried grass, which he used to start the fire. With sturdy sticks he roasted the frogs on spits, something he had seen in a movie.
