by Larry Bond
“He was in a talkative mood.”
“I have something I wanted to ask you about,” Zeus told Kerfer.
“Go ahead.”
“This isn’t a good place.”
“As good as any. Nobody’s listening to us, Major. Look around.”
Zeus shook his head.
“All right,” said Kerfer. “Lead the way.”
“I thought you’d have scouted out a place.”
Kerfer laughed. “Follow me.”
The SEAL was a powerfully built man, with broad shoulders and legs that worked like piston rods. He exuded a certain don’t-mess-with-me energy, and the crowd parted as he got up from his seat and led Zeus into a supply room at the back end of the bar. He didn’t bother flipping on a light, and there was barely enough to see around the tall shelves of supplies as he walked to the back of the room. There he paused in front of a steel door; he fiddled with the knob for a moment, then pulled the door open, having picked the lock. Zeus hadn’t even seen him take the lock-picking tools from his pocket.
“Out here,” Kerfer told him.
Zeus followed up a short flight of steps to a long, narrow corridor. A glass door, all but one of its panes missing, stood at the end. There was no doorknob on the inside; Kerfer reached through and took hold of the small handle to unlatch it. They emerged on a wide patio.
A man stood against the far rail, smoking a cigar.
“Take a walk,” Kerfer said to him in English. Then he added another few words in Vietnamese. “B?.”
The man frowned, but stuck the cigar in his mouth and left, going through the way they had just come. Kerfer, meanwhile, walked over to the edge of the patio, which was bounded by a short, thick wall. The space overlooked a yard paved with small stones that was part of the hotel restaurant’s outdoor dining area; it was closed to patrons.
“I don’t think B? really means go,” said Kerfer. “More like ‘abandon all hope ye who enter here.’”
“Your Vietnamese is getting better.”
“It gets the job done.”
Zeus looked around. They were alone.
“I need to get somebody out of the country,” said Zeus.
“Your girlfriend?”
Zeus felt his cheeks warm.
“Relax, Major, I’m not your chaperone,” said Kerfer. “I don’t give a crap about where you dip your wick.”
“Listen—”
“Why don’t you throw her on a military transport? There’s a helo coming into the embassy in a few hours.”
“Perry won’t go for it.”
“I’m just a gofer. I bring things in, not take them out. When we left with the scientist, we had a destroyer.”
“You think I can bribe some of the people you’re working with?”
“The nonmilitary people? Sure, you can bribe ’em.” The SEAL rubbed his face. “Whether they can help you or not is another question.”
“How much will they want?”
“The question is how much you can trust them,” answered Kerfer. “You’re not paying attention. I’d say the way things are going, nobody’s going to be able to help you pretty soon. Where is she?”
“I don’t know for sure,” said Zeus. “A military prison. I’m working on it.”
“Why is she in jail?”
“It’s a long story … She saved the life of a POW that the Vietnamese wanted to kill. So she was arrested—”
“Save it,” said Kerfer. “Your best bet is to get her out on an embassy flight.”
“That ain’t gonna work.”
Kerfer shrugged. He pushed off from the wall.
“I have something else I need to talk about,” said Zeus.
Kerfer stopped.
“Yeah?”
“I need to get in touch with your command. I have something I want to talk to them about. I want to work something out with Trung. But I can’t go through Perry.”
General Minh Trung commanded the Vietnamese army. Kerfer scratched his ear, then the side of his cheek.
“You want to tell me what the hell it is you’re planning?” he asked Zeus.
“No.”
“You know, I’ll give you this, Major. You’re nobody’s fool.” Kerfer laughed. It was a short laugh, the sort of thing a man does when he finds the world’s insanity amusing. “I thought you were kind of a desk jockey pussy when I first met you, like that partner of yours, but I was wrong.”
“Christian is dead. He died in the line of duty.”
“Oh.”
Zeus suddenly felt an obligation to stand up for Christian, even though he had spent a good deal of his time despising the man when they were together.
“Win Christian jumped on the back of a Chinese tank,” said Zeus. “He tried to blow it up. He got a bunch of them before he died. He was right in the middle of things. He risked his life. He was a brave man.”
Kerfer said nothing. Zeus wondered if he thought Christian was foolish—and if, by extension, he was, too. But SEALs were always doing ridiculous things, always risking their lives on the battlefield.
“I have a plan to help the Vietnamese,” said Zeus. “I think it’ll stop the Chinese cold.”
“How high up at my command do you want to talk?” said Kerfer after what seemed like an eternity.
“High enough to get people into China.”
“You should talk to the agency,” said Kerfer. “They’re the people running the show.”
“I want to be involved.”
“So tell them that.” Kerfer gave him another of his cynical laughs. “You think if you got the go-ahead from WARCOM, they would let you be in charge? You don’t know them very well.”
WARCOM was the SEAL command.
“You need agency approval anyway,” said Kerfer. “Talk to them first.”
“Who?”
“Lucas. Peter Lucas. Or the woman he had here, if you can track her down. Mara Duncan.”
“Yeah, you’re right. I should talk to Mara.”
“I can give you a lift back to the embassy.”
“I can’t go there. Perry wants to put me on a helicopter.”
“Well, that’s a bit of a problem for you, Major, isn’t it? Because you need a secure phone line to talk to anybody important, don’t you?”
“You have an encrypted sat phone.”
Kerfer shook his head.
“I know you do, Ric,” insisted Zeus. “Come on.”
* * *
In the end, Kerfer let Zeus borrow the phone, but only with him there. First he led him to a second, windowless courtyard, which he swept with a small electronic device to make sure they weren’t being bugged. It was paranoid overkill, but necessary just the same.
Kerfer had to call one of his own people to get cleared up to the CIA contact; that cost him a promise to fill the man in later. He got the number for the Vietnamese situation desk at Langley, made the call, then handed the phone over to Zeus.
Zeus talked for a bit, but mostly spent the call frowning. He looked as if he’d been punched in the stomach when he handed back the phone.
“Problem?” Kerfer asked.
“I have to talk to Perry.”
Harland Perry was so famous in the military that even Kerfer had known who he was before coming to Vietnam. The general was a powerful presence in the Army, and not only because he was friends with the president. Even before George Chester Greene had been elected, Perry was on the short list of future candidates for Army chief of staff. Few people would want to cross him, even in the CIA.
“Come on, Major, I’ll buy you a drink,” said Kerfer loudly. “Or should I just put you to bed?”
“I’m wide awake.”
“You’re zoning on your feet. Did you even hear what I just said?”
“When?”
“Come on. Another beer. Or maybe some coffee.”
* * *
Zeus followed Kerfer into the hotel. It was clear the SEAL officer had thoroughly checked the place out; he moved smoothly throu
gh the dimly lit corridor and then the back rooms. Finally they reached the metal door that went into the storeroom behind the bar and pulled it open. He led the way around the now-empty shelving where food supplies had once been kept. Just before Kerfer reached the door to the bar, they heard loud sirens from outside.
There was commotion on the other side of the door. Kerfer stopped, listened, then put his hand out, keeping Zeus from opening the door.
“What’s going on?” Zeus asked.
“Probably a bomb raid. Hang back a minute. They’re probably all heading for the bomb shelter.”
“Shouldn’t we?”
“Sure, if you want to be buried with a couple hundred strangers when a bomb hits.”
“You think the building will collapse?”
“Nah.” Kerfer shrugged as if the odds were a million to one. Zeus thought about it, and decided that if the building was hit by any bomb big enough to do serious damage, it would most likely collapse. It would be days, maybe weeks before they would be dug out, if they were dug out.
Better to go out in the blast.
When the commotion inside had died down, Kerfer opened the door. The barroom was completely empty. The lights were still on, and drinks arrayed around the tables, as if the inhabitants had simply disintegrated.
They walked to the bar. The SEAL went over to the liquor well and took a fresh bottle of Jack Daniel’s from the shelf. He fished around for two fresh glasses, then set them out.
“I’ll just have a beer,” said Zeus.
“Suit yourself.” Kerfer pointed to the tap. “They’re still serving Tsingtao. So your choices are watered-down Chinese beer, or watered-down lite Chinese beer.”
“I’ll try the lite.”
Kerfer tilted a glass beneath the tap.
“You know, if you get too tied up in a place, you end up with problems,” he said, watching the liquid run slowly into the glass. “Sooner or later, you get to the point where you can’t separate things out into the proper categories.”
He dragged the word categories out, almost like a word in a song. Zeus knew he was supposed to interpret it as a warning—he’d have been brain-dead not to—but he ignored it. Instead, he glanced around the room. It seemed smaller without the people here.
The red drapes that hung along the walls looked like the cushioned sides of a coffin. The black tiebacks added to the funereal feel.
“So you’re having trouble with Perry?” Kerfer slid the beer over to him.
“I really can’t get into it.”
“Right.” Kerfer filled his cocktail glass about a tenth of the way with the Tennessee whiskey. Then he scooped up some ice from a tray below the bar. “He’s listening to the people who think China’ll flatten the Viets inside a week.”
He pronounced “Viets” like “Veets.”
“You think that’s gonna happen?” Zeus asked.
“I don’t go around making predictions. That’s the job of assholes and generals.”
“If it’s so foolish to stay, why are you here?” said Zeus. He felt his cheeks and the skin under his ears starting to buzz.
“Who says I think it’s foolish?”
“Why are you helping them? I mean.”
“I’m following orders,” said Kerfer. “Even SEALs have to do that, now and again.”
He smiled and took a long sip from his glass. His eyes had narrowed; it seemed to Zeus that he was looking off into the distance—to the future, maybe, or perhaps the past. Kerfer remained a mystery to him.
There was pain as well as cynicism in his face. Maybe he had lost someone he loved. Or maybe he had killed more people than Zeus had, and they were weighing on him.
Funny. Not one of the Chinese soldiers he’d killed haunted him. It didn’t bother him in the least—it was kill or be killed.
Zeus put his drink down. The thought had taken him by surprise—he’d killed many people.
Soldiers, not people. But of course they were people. Until that very moment he had separated the two categories. They were separate—soldiers were not people. The enemy was not people.
He glanced up at Kerfer, thinking that he might ask him about this—ask him, one killer to another, if he kept separate tallies. But Kerfer had turned his attention to the doorway.
A man stood there. He was Vietnamese, short and thin. He wore a stained white apron as if he’d come from the kitchen. He had an AK-47 in his hand.
The man stared at the room, puzzled. Suddenly he seemed to notice Zeus and Kerfer. When he did, he jerked his shoulders up, raising the gun in the same motion.
He shouted words in Vietnamese that Zeus couldn’t understand.
“Cái gì th?” said Kerfer matter-of factly, as if the man were ranting about the weather. “What’s the matter?”
The man pointed the rifle at him and shouted again.
Zeus had his service pistol in a holster under his outer clothes, but it would take precious seconds before he could reach it. By then, he’d be dead. There was no cover between him and the man. He thought of retreating behind the bend in the bar, but that would take as long as pulling his gun.
Kerfer spread his hands, gesturing to the man.
“Tôi không hiu ý anh,” said Kerfer. “I don’t understand. I don’t understand Vietnamese. Can you speak English?”
This elicited another long rant. The man seemed to calm slightly as he spoke, though his head bobbed emphatically as he made his points.
Zeus noticed that Kerfer was moving almost imperceptibly forward.
That was the strategy—get close to him and rush him. Zeus took a step. Immediately the man turned the gun toward him.
Zeus put out his hands.
“I don’t understand Vietnamese,” he said. “What do you need us to do?”
The man frowned. Zeus struggled to understand. It was impossible.
“Anh có cn s giúp đõ’ không?” he asked finally. “Do you need help?”
The man lowered his rifle so that it was even with Zeus’s chest. He pushed out with it, almost as if he was thrusting an imaginary bayonet in the American’s direction. Fortunately, they were still separated by a dozen feet.
Kerfer started to talk, once more in his very calm voice. The man frowned but then turned toward him, answering.
“He thinks we’re spies,” said Kerfer, talking to Zeus while keeping his eyes fixed on the man. “From what I can make out.”
“Spies?”
“Yeah, for China.”
“Shit.”
“Irony is a wonderful thing, isn’t it? What the hell happened to your minder?”
“What minder?”
“You were followed on the way in. I figured Trung or somebody put a guard on you. Really, Major, you didn’t notice him? We lost him in the halls. Looks like he took off. And he ain’t comin’ back.”
Kerfer held out his hands as the man began yelling again. He picked up a can of soda from the back of the bar.
“Đ ung nh?” Kerfer held the can up, twisting it in his hand. “Soft drinks? A soda—would you like?”
It seemed an odd way to placate a crazy man. It didn’t work—the man’s voice turned angrier. Zeus couldn’t understand the exact words, but the meaning seemed clear enough: I’m going to kill you bastards.
Zeus angled his left foot forward, getting ready to plunge ahead. The strategy seemed clear now. Kerfer was getting the man’s attention. Zeus would work himself close enough, then jump him.
Kerfer could use the bar for cover. The way it was angled, he could duck down.
Or not. The man with the gun had a clear sight down if he took a half step to the right.
He couldn’t get both of them.
“Maybe a chair,” said Zeus, taking a half step forward. He gestured toward the chair. “Maybe you should sit.”
The man’s rants turned even more emphatic.
“All right, all right,” said Zeus. “I was just trying to make you comfortable.”
“Ô!” shouted Kerfer
. “Hey!”
As he yelled, Kerfer pulled the top on the cola can and tossed it at the man as if it were a grenade. Soda spurt in the air. Zeus took two steps toward the man, preparing to dive at him. Something barked at his ear—twice, three times.
The man spun backward, almost pirouetting, a dancer in a play. He fell back, beyond Zeus’s reach, the AK falling to the ground. Zeus stopped, his hands out. He felt for a moment as if he had been plunged into the middle of a dream.
“I almost shot you,” snarled Kerfer. He’d drawn a pistol and fired in the split second that the man was distracted, though Zeus couldn’t imagine how it had happened; the time seemed too short.
“What the hell?” asked Zeus.
“Some fuckin’ crazy,” said Kerfer. “He thought we were spying for the fuckin’ Chinese. God. How insane is that?”
He touched the barrel of his gun, sliding his hand down it as if to wipe it off, or maybe to see if it was warm. Then he slipped the gun back into the front of his belt below his loose shirt.
“You’re pretty fast,” Zeus told him.
“Lucky he doesn’t like Coke. Let’s get the hell out of here.”
2
Washington, D.C.
George Chester Greene folded his arms in front of his chest as his aide fiddled with the setting for the iPad, attempting to fix whatever bug was preventing it from receiving the transmission. The morning was warm for early March, and though dressed only in his suit, Greene could feel the sweat rolling down his cheek and neck. Fortunately, there was enough scenery in the Rose Garden that no one would notice.
“I’m sorry, Mr. President,” said the flustered aide. “I just had it. I’m not sure what’s messing me up here.”
“Don’t bother,” said the president finally. He was annoyed—more than annoyed, really—but didn’t want the kid to think he was angry with him. So he added lightly, “They’re only going to say what a jackass I am.”
The aide, Jason Hanson, looked at him with an ashen face. He grimaced; Greene could have hit him in the stomach and gotten much less of a response.
“It’s OK, Jason,” said Greene, amused. “That is what my friends in Congress think. They may not use those exact words.”
“Th-they’re not your friends, sir. They’re … assholes.”
