Edge of War - [Red Dragon Rising 02]

by Larry Bond

  Josh handed the weapon over.

  “You all packed? Ready to go?” asked Little Joe.

  “I don’t have much,” said Josh.

  “Travel light, right?” Little Joe gave one of his chortles. “Let’s go then. We gotta meet the spook lady.”

  Josh followed the SEAL through the hall toward the back of the building. They came out in a narrow alley. Another SEAL, Eric Wright, was there with a pickup truck they’d commandeered.

  Mạ was sitting next to him, sucking her thumb. She opened her mouth wide as Josh slid in, then threw herself on him.

  “Hey, I’m happy to see you, too,” he told her. “How are ya?”

  Mạ didn’t understand what he said; she spoke only Vietnamese.

  “She’s a doll,” said Eric. “Cute kid.”

  “Been through hell,” said Little Joe, squeezing in on the other side of Josh. Mạ sat on Josh’s lap, giving them all room.

  “Where’d you get the truck?” Josh asked. It was a two-door Toyota, maybe a year old.

  “Nice wheels, huh?” said Little Joe. “Not even a dent.”

  “Where’d you get it?” asked Josh, trying to make conversation.

  “Rental lot,” said Eric.

  “How much is a rental here?”

  “Cheap,” Little Joe chortled. “We paid with SEAL.”

  “Call it an exchange,” said Eric. “We took the truck, and, in exchange, we didn’t blow nothin’ up.”

  As they drove out of the alley onto the main street, both men became silent, watching their surroundings. Little Joe was still smiling, but his eyes were darting.

  “Patrol up there,” he said. “Two guys on the deuce.”

  “Yeah,” grunted Eric.

  Technically, the truck they’d spotted wasn’t a deuce-and-a-half, military slang for a two-and-a-half-ton transport used by the army to haul men and supplies. But the description was close enough: the vehicle was a troop truck with a canvas back, similar in purpose if not exact detail. Ironically, the vehicle was made by China, which before the war had done a fair amount of trade with Vietnam.

  “Sniper up on that building,” said Eric.

  Little Joe leaned forward to look as they passed. “Just guarding something,” he said. “Just watching. Not a sniper.”

  “You know what the hell I mean, man.”

  “Well then say it.”

  “Hey, fuck you. He’s a sniper, all right?”

  “Watch the language. We got a kid.”

  “Sorry.”

  “What’s he going to snipe at?”

  “The rabble.”

  Little Joe laughed. “They have these guys in the city to show the people they’re safe,” he told Josh. “It’s psychological. They don’t want panic.”

  “That’s bull,” said Eric. “They’re looking for SEALs. And spies. And Santa Claus, ‘cause they know he comes by rooftop.”

  “Don’t listen to him,” said Little Joe. “He’s nuts. He flunked colors in kindergarten.”

  “Look who’s talking,” said Eric. “Don’t listen to him, kid. He can’t find his dick in a bathroom. Stick with me. I’ll give you the straight story.”

  “Hey—watch it for the kid.”

  “Sorry.”

  The two SEALs traded put-downs—without any more four-letter words—as they wended their way through the capital. The streets were far less crowded than they had been two weeks before, when Josh was here with the expedition team, gathering supplies and preparing to go into the jungle.

  And yet, the destruction he saw was less than he would have expected.

  “I’m amazed there’s so many buildings still standing,” he said.

  “Don’t let that fool you,” said Little Joe. “Airport’s pretty much leveled, and a lot of the important government buildings are wiped out.”

  “Takes a lot to steamroll a city,” added Eric. “But they’re working on it.”

  “Come back next week,” said Little Joe. “City’ll be one big pile of rubble.”

  “Nah, they won’t waste the ammo,” said Eric. “Waste of time to blow everything up.”

  “Chinese invented gunpowder. They like blowing sh—stuff up,” he added, amending his language midstream because of Mạ.

  “So do I, but I wouldn’t waste it on Hanoi.”

  “That’s it,” said Little Joe, pointing to a brown brick building. “Shop’s around the back.”

  Eric pulled over. Little Joe hopped out, pushing the door closed behind him. He eyed the street left and right, then motioned Josh out. He took Mạ by the hand and walked with her through the alley side by side to a blue door. It was a small restaurant. Mara was sitting at a table in the corner, speaking to a hollow-cheeked Vietnamese man. The man fidgeted almost violently, turning his head left and right and flailing his elbows almost as if they were wings and he was trying to take off. Mara looked up as they came in and glared at them.

  “Here,” said Josh, realizing that she didn’t want them to interrupt. “Let’s take this table.”

  Little Joe pulled out a chair and sat down, positioning himself so he could see the entire room. His back was to Mara and the man.

  A woman came over. Josh had only enough Vietnamese to realize she was asking what they wanted.

  “Cà phê sũa,” he said, asking for white coffee.

  “Me, too,” said Little Joe, in English.

  The woman glanced nervously at his submachine gun, which he’d put on his lap. Josh signaled with his fingers that they wanted two of the coffees.

  “Milk for Mạ?” he said.

  The woman said something in Vietnamese that he didn’t understand. Mạ answered.

  “Okay, Joe?” asked the woman.

  “Yup,” said Josh, who didn’t understand what she had ordered, but figured it would be okay.

  “She tell us it was on the house?” asked Little Joe.

  “I have no idea,” said Josh.

  “You don’t know Vietnamese?”

  “Not really. They taught some phrases and things, and we practiced a little, but when people talk real fast, I can’t get it,” Josh said. “The tones are tough—the same sound can mean a bunch of things, depending on how they inflect it.”

  “Well that’s a bitch. We’ll have to take pot luck, huh?”

  “I ordered white coffee. It’s coffee with milk.”

  “What if I wanted tea?”

  “Oh. Um—”

  “Just busting you, kid. Coffee’s good.”

  Though Little Joe called him “kid,” the SEAL seemed to be about his age. Maybe being in combat made him feel older than other people.

  “So you’re a scientist, right?” said Little Joe. “What do you do? You know, science-wise?”

  “I’m a weather scientist. Actually, what I study is the relationship between weather and biomes. We were looking at the plant life, how it’s changed in the last two years.”

  “Global warming, right?” Little Joe smirked.

  “I really hate that term. It doesn’t describe what’s going on. Vietnam’s average temperature is actually lower than it was a decade ago. People think everything’s getting hotter but it really isn’t.”

  Josh began explaining that the effects of rapid weather change were extremely complicated. In Vietnam’s case, the changes had actually increased the arable land and lengthened the growing season.

  Little Joe chortled. “What’s ‘arable’?” he said.

  “Just farmland,” said Josh. “They grow a lot of rice, and what they’ve been able to do with increased crops—as much from genetic engineering on the rice as from the weather, but the weather did really help. Anyway, what they have now are two and even three crops per year, with yields that five years ago would have been unimaginable. They even do better than we do back home. That’s given them an incredible boost. That’s why China’s invading. They want the food.”

  “Nah, it’s their oil,” said Little Joe. “They got tons of it offshore. That’s what this is ab
out.”

  “Oil’s important,” said Josh, who knew that the oil fields off Vietnam’s eastern shores were reputed to hold over twelve billion barrels, nearly double the estimate of a few years before. China was a voracious consumer. “But food is the reason people go to war. Vietnam has food and China doesn’t. Or not enough, anyway.”

  “Nah. Always about oil, kid. It’s always oil.”

  ~ * ~

  Mara tried to stay focused on what Phai was telling her about his cousin, but it was difficult. The SEAL and his submachine gun had drawn the attention of everyone in the room. It would be clear that they were together.

  “The difficult problem in his village is thinking the Americans are friends,” Phai said. “No one accepts that. Always be on guard.”

  “I understand.”

  “Then good luck.” He started to rise.

  “Wait,” said Mara, grabbing his hand.

  It was a breach of etiquette, a mildly serious one, since they were different genders, and Phai immediately tensed. Mara let go.

  She apologized. He nodded stiffly and asked what she needed.

  “I have some things to sell. Satellite phones. I need to find a place—”

  “I can take them.”

  “No. They may be bugged. I don’t want you connected to them.”

  He named a gold shop on Ha Trung, and gave her directions. Then he rose and walked out quickly arms tight to his body as if he were trying to shrivel into the air.

  Mara fished out money for the bill, adding extra dong to cover Mạ, Josh, and Little Joe. She got up and walked to their table.

  “Leave. Now,” she said, and without waiting dropped the cash on the table and walked out.

  The SEAL with the truck was waiting at the head of the alley. Nothing like being conspicuous. Mara gritted her back teeth.

  “Hey, spook,” said Little Joe, practically swinging as he came out the door. “Where to now?”

  “You jackass. What the hell did you go in there with your gun for?”

  “Bunches of people have their guns with them,” said Little Joe.

  “Bunches of people aren’t Americans. They’re the militia.”

  “Nobody complained.”

  “Get in the fucking truck,” said Mara. She turned to Josh. “You have to have more sense.”

  “I uh—”

  “Get Mạ in the truck,” said Mara.

  “Listen—”

  “You thought he knew what he was doing, is that what you were going to say?”

  “No. I mean—”

  “He’s got a brain the size of a pea. They all do.”

  The three walked back to the pickup. Josh started to get into the open bed.

  “Joe goes back there,” said Mara. “You stay in the front with me.”

  Inside the truck, she told Eric to take them to Hotel Nikko.

  “I don’t know where that is,” said Eric.

  “It’s on Tran Nhan Tong Street. In Dong Da.”

  “If it ain’t in Michigan, I don’t have a clue.”

  “It’s south,” said Mara. “Go up a block and take a left. Go clown Ba Trieu. There aren’t too many troops.”

  “Direct me.”

  The hotel was one of the city’s best. A large Western-style building near Hoan Kiem Lake, it was located in a neighborhood that included several embassies, and so far had escaped damage.

  “Stay with the girl and the truck,” Mara told the SEALs as they pulled up to the thick overhang that marked the entrance. There were soldiers around the corner, but none in the plaza at the front of the hotel.

  “No, we’re with Josh until the place is secure,” said Little Joe. “Orders.”

  “Screw your orders,” she told him. “The more attention we attract, the less secure we all are.”

  “Hey, I’ll go inside and scout,” said Eric, jumping out of the driver’s seat. “If I spin around, something’s up. You stay with Mạ.”

  “Fine with me,” said Little Joe.

  Eric pulled his shirt out, making sure the front concealed his holster. Mara frowned. She waited a few seconds, then led Josh inside. The lobby was crowded with foreigners sitting on the couches or milling around, making nervous conversation.

  Kerfer was sitting near the bar, nursing a beer. “Took your time,” he said.

  “I’m not on your schedule,” said Mara.

  “Longer we wait to leave, the more chance the Chinks have to overrun the place.”

  “I wish you’d watch your language.”

  “That’s rich. You think any of these people would object? Fucking Chinks are breathing down their necks.” Kerfer took a swig of his beer. It was a Sapporo. “You know the restaurant’s supposed to be pretty good. I ate here a couple of years ago. How are ya today, Doc? You eat yet?”

  “I’m not that hungry,” said Josh.

  “Don’t blame you. Heard you didn’t sleep well.”

  Josh shrugged. “I slept okay.”

  Kerfer pushed the beer toward the bartender. “Couple more,” he said in English.

  “We have to talk, Lieutenant,” said Mara. “Over there. In private.”

  Kerfer got up and followed her toward the side of the room. “You sure this place ain’t bugged?” he asked.

  “We’re not talking inside.”

  She went down the hall through a staff-only door and out into the back lot.

  “You know your way around pretty well,” said Kerfer.

  “Listen, your men have to keep their weapons out of sight.”

  “Eric’s is under his shirt.”

  “Little Joe was swinging his around like he was exposing himself in a girl’s boarding school.”

  Kerfer laughed. “Well, you got him pegged.” He took out a cigar. “Copped this from the bartender. Cost me ten U.S. You figure that’s a good deal?”

  “Conserve your money,” she told him. “I need to run a few more errands. We’ll meet at the train station at noon.”

  “Train station?”

  Mara stared at him.

  “You’re out of your fucking mind, lady.” Kerfer clipped the end of the cigar with a cutter, then poked it in his mouth. “We’re going to take a train?”

  “Why not?”

  “Chinese’ll bomb it as soon as they can spare the iron.”

  “We’ll be in Saigon by then.”

  “I wouldn’t bet on it.”

  “I know my way around. I don’t need you to hold my hand.”

  “I’m supposed to get you back in one piece. You and Junior in there.”

  “You were assigned to get me out from behind the lines. You did a fine job. I can take it from here.”

  Kerfer laughed. He puffed up his cigar, pushing the flame with a series of sharp breaths.

  “You’re just good enough to be dangerous,” he told her.

  “Just get Josh to the station in one piece, okay? If you don’t want to come with us, then you don’t have to. We’re probably safer traveling on our own.”

  “You believe that?”

  “Yes.”

  He laughed again, then blew a ring of smoke from his mouth. “I’ll have him there,” said Kerfer. “You trust me to do that?”

  “Not really.”

  ~ * ~

  8

  Hanoi

  Jing Yo had first met Hyuen Bo three years before, when he was assigned to visit Vietnam as part of a training regime for the commando regiment. He’d already been in combat for nearly a year, assisting guerrillas in Malaysia; the assignment was intended mostly as a rest period, but also helped familiarize him with the country of a traditional enemy. It would turn out to be the first of several trips, though at the time neither he nor his superiors knew that.

  Hanoi had been his base of operations. As cover, he had enrolled in the college of science as a biology student. It was there that he met Hyuen Bo.

  She was working as a clerk for the registrar, and helped him with his paperwork. He stared at her long black hair as she showed h
im the forms, entranced by her face and the scent of jasmine surrounding her.