by Larry Bond
Zeus saw how Trung was fitting things together, thinking beyond the ambush. He wanted the Chinese to commit to an attack along the highway at Malipo. The idea wasn’t that he thought the Chinese would be more vulnerable to the Vietnamese there; it was that it would take them longer to go down into Vietnamese territory, especially once their noses were bloodied in the city.
Would that work?
Perhaps in conjunction with the attack at Kunming. With the army group commander out of the picture, it would be more difficult for the divisions to coordinate. They would have Malipo as a goal—take back the Chinese city—and then the tendency would be to stop.
A truly smart commander would bypass the city entirely after the ambush, simply plunging south in the direction the Vietnamese had come. But Trung had the Chinese gauged fairly well—certainly they would want to take back their territory.
“So Major, this is what we will do then,” said Trung. “I need to speak with my staff officers.”
“OK,” said Zeus. Trung’s voice seemed less tired, as if making the decision had given him a burst of energy.
“You will arrange the strike.”
“I’ll do that now.”
Zeus picked up his backpack but lingered. He wanted to ask Trung about Anna.
It was Trung who brought it up.
“Did you find the woman?” asked the general.
“Yes, as a matter of fact I did,” said Zeus sharply.
He’d expected Trung to be surprised, but on the contrary, the general nodded slightly, as if he had planned for them to meet all along. Zeus wondered if Major Chaū had told him.
“She is in good health?” asked Trung.
“Why didn’t you order her released?” asked Zeus.
“Is that what you wish?”
“Absolutely,” said Zeus, suddenly angry.
“I do not have omniscient powers. I will do my best.”
“Why did you keep her from me?”
Trung studied him for a moment, looking into his eyes. Zeus almost believed that Major Chaū had lied. But Chaū had no reason to.
“You found her,” said Trung finally. “If I had wanted to keep you from her, would that have been possible?”
Zeus had no answer for that. Yet he was sure that Trung had delayed him, sure that he had meant to keep him.
“Will you arrange the strike?” asked the general.
“I’ll arrange it,” said Zeus. “Keep your word about the girl.”
* * *
Outside the truck, Zeus walked across the clearing to the administrative tents. Two were being used as mess areas; the sharp, pungent smell of food bit at Zeus’s nose. Trung had planned to rest the troops for a few more hours, but already there was activity indicating that they would be leaving soon—troops were being pushed through the food line, and some of the cooking gear was already being packed away.
The first order of business was to arrange for the Tomahawk strike. Zeus circled around the tent area and walked to the small creek beyond, crossing over to find a place where he could be alone. A knot of soldiers sat hunched near the water, smoking cigarettes—smoking was rare in the U.S., but widespread in Vietnam. Zeus walked about twenty meters downstream, then swung the ruck off his back. He took out one of the sat phones, and after glancing around several times, called Lucas.
“There’s no way that’s going to be authorized,” Lucas told him when he heard about the Tomahawk plan. “Just no way. Haven’t you been paying attention, Major? The U.S. cannot be openly involved. How does this fit into Kunming?”
“If we don’t take Malipo, we can’t get to Kunming. “There’s an armored force that’s coming down the highway ahead of mechanized infantry. If they get through to Malipo, the Vietnamese will be slaughtered.”
They might be slaughtered anyway, he thought.
“Yes, I’ve seen the data, but I don’t get the connection with Malipo.”
“We need the airport there.”
“You’re going to have to find another way. The president is not going to allow us to use Tomahawks.” He started to hang up.
“Wait—there’s something else I need,” said Zeus, practically shouting.
“What is it?”
“Javelin missiles. They’re antitank weapons—”
“I know what they are.” Lucas’s voice gave Zeus the impression that he was sorry he’d ever answered the phone. “Again, any indication that the U.S. is involved in anyway—”
“They could come from our allies. Like the Russian missiles did. We need to get more antitank weapons up here and the Javelins are better. We need them right away.”
“Major—”
“And I know how to fire these,” added Zeus, not wanting to get into a weapons debate. “I can show them how to use them. It’s what we need to stop the tanks.”
The Russian weapons would work as well, but Zeus trusted the Javelins much more. And, they were closer.
“We’ve sold them to the Indians,” said Zeus. “General Perry and I discussed this just the other day. There were plenty of shipments just recently. If you phony up the serial numbers, the Chinese can’t trace them. You can get them over from India in a few hours—if you get Russian equipment it will take days, like before.”
Lucas didn’t answer.
“I’ll get back to you,” he said finally.
26
Kunming
The scent of bleach still hung in the staff room, a faint reminder of Li Sun’s decision to purge the old wood that had held back the army. Otherwise, there was no trace of the tired mice, nothing to remind him of the men who had stood in China’s way.
He paced the room, alone with the map that had just been updated to reflect the army group’s latest movements. The advance teams of the division leading the spearhead would arrive in Malipo by mid-morning tomorrow, well ahead of schedule.
He considered whether he should hold them there. The armored unit’s speed had brought other problems. It was now roughly two days ahead of the two infantry divisions and support units that were supposed to accompany it on the drive through Vietnam. Even worse, he could tell from the latest reconnaissance photos that it was getting too spread out, its subunits at times out of communication with each other.
The mountains ate radio signals. Most of the troops under Li Sun’s commands were still communicating with older TBR-134 20W radios, state of the art when they had been introduced some ten or fifteen years before, but little better than tube radios in the rugged conditions where they were now operating. Even the newest versions, which operated with more power but on the same standard frequencies, could not always be relied on to navigate the interference of the choppy terrain, let alone any active jamming.
Satellite radios were severely limited in the Chinese army for several reasons, not the least of which was the fear that their features preventing eavesdropping would allow them to foment a revolt. There was only one encrypted satellite phone in the tank division, and that belonged to the command’s political officer, not the division commander.
Something Li Sun would eventually have to fix. He added it to the long list he kept in his head.
There were thousands of details to see to. Working with Chan’s help, he had promoted a number of underlings to positions of responsibility, but there were still many gaps in his organization. He had sent for several old friends to fill key positions, but they had yet to arrive. He was doing much of the work himself.
He could handle it. He was only facing the Vietnamese, after all.
Li Sun bent over the map. His enemy was huddled in the area of Lao Cai, which was to the west of his attack route. Lately, they seemed to be trying to reinforce the general area, but their effort was so puny it was hardly worth notice.
During the border wars of the last century, the two countries had had several fierce battles in the mountain valleys around Lao Cai. Much had changed in the two decades since—China was now a superpower, and Vietnam an even more inferior bug.
&
nbsp; Li Sun straightened. There was a folder of images from the reconnaissance aircraft’s latest runs at the far edge of the table that he had not yet reviewed.
This was another thing that annoyed him—the intelligence system was not fully automated. The images had been taken with a digital system by the aircraft, downloaded to a computer at the air base, then copied by hand to a memory device. This was walked to an intelligence area in another building where they were interpreted. This alone took two hours.
Finally, a report was presented to his headquarters, sent by a secure communication system. But there was only one computer terminal dedicated to that system at headquarters, and information sent there could not be shared directly to any other computer. The report and the images had to be printed out, if they were to be shared. His division commanders did not have any other access to it.
Absurd.
This, too, would have to be fixed.
As he worked through the images, one caught Li Sun’s eye. Two tanks and an armored personnel carrier had been seen on a road north of Ha Giang, Vietnam.
Curiously far north, he thought.
Or at least it looked to him like two tanks. The image was very blurred. The intel notation indicated only armor.
It was a pathetic force, but Li Sun wondered—hadn’t the earlier reports declared that all of the Vietnamese armored units were accounted for elsewhere? There was a small force to the east, engaged in action. Were these just strays?
Two tanks alone? In China, that was next to impossible. But Vietnam, with its skimpy resources and disjointed command structure …
If they were tanks, they would date from the 1960s or perhaps the ’70s, relics of the country’s war with the Americans.
Two tanks.
Had they missed something? Surely there must be an entire unit to go with these. Where was it?
“Chan!” Li Sun bellowed. “Come in here now! I need you.”
27
Washington, D.C.
Peter Lucas had lost track of time, and not just the hours. He honestly could not have told whether it was day or night without looking at the clock on the paneled wall of the conference room.
But that was the least of his worries.
Zeus Murphy had been absolutely correct, no doubt due to the staff work that had been done several days earlier. There were plenty of Javelin missiles available in India. Not only had Lucas found them, but he had managed to find an MC-17 to deliver them. The problem was getting an OK to use the plane, which was a military asset, and outside his immediate reach.
No one else gathered in the top-floor conference room could offer much of a solution either, starting with their boss, CIA director Peter Frost.
“Forget the Air Force,” said Frost. He ran his hand through his hair, then leaned down toward the table, as if the thoughts in his head had made it so heavy it needed another support. “Send them by boat the way you sent Setco over.”
“I don’t have any more speedboats in Thailand,” said Lucas. “I had to use a chain of them. If I use a regular ship—it’ll take days. We need them there in hours.”
The door buzzer sounded. Frost turned to Sally Nolan, an analyst who’d become essentially his administrative assistant on the Vietnam matter, and signaled for her to open the door.
It was Mara Duncan. She passed a tight smile around the room, then slipped down the side, squeezing past the empty chairs and circling around toward Lucas while he resumed his argument.
“If we’re not going to get them over in time for this battle, we might just as well forget about giving them to the Vietnamese in the first place,” Lucas said. “If we’re going to have any impact on the Chinese at all—”
“It’s a losing proposition,” said James Smith. Smith, a retired Army colonel, was a specialist in Asian warfare. His opinions tended to carry a lot of weight, not so much because they were generally right, but because he had published two well-reviewed books on World War II.
They were so dull that Lucas hadn’t made it past the first chapter in either one.
“The Chinese are going to steamroll them now. It’s just a matter of time,” added Smith. “This latest move—it’s not the best strategic or tactical use of their forces, but frankly they don’t have to be geniuses to beat the Vietnamese. Hell, if this were World War II, the Italians could have.”
“I thought you said the attack down the western valley was pretty smart,” said Roni Yellis, another analyst. She hated Smith, as her body language made clear.
“It was, but they didn’t exploit it.”
Mara leaned next to Frost and whispered in his ear.
“I ID’d the launch vehicles,” she said. “Scud-ERs. That narrows down the possible sites to about a dozen.”
Lucas was temporarily distracted, and missed some of the give-and-take between the others.
“Peter? Did you want to respond?” asked Frost.
“I’m sorry,” said Lucas. “I missed the question.”
“How much of a difference will it make if we get these missiles to them?” asked Yellis.
“It will make a big difference,” said Frost. “It lets them take Malipo, and it sets up our operation in Kunming. We need to refuel up at Malipo to make the distance safely. I confirmed it with Ric.”
It was significant that he’d talked to the SEAL rather than his own man, but no one else picked it up. Setco had bouts of recklessness. He trusted him to get the job done if it was possible, but not to assess whether it could be accomplished or not.
“Even if they take the city, they can’t hold it,” said Smith. “How long will they be there? Twenty-four hours? Two days?”
“Just the fact that they’re there will unnerve the Chinese,” said Yellis.
“I’ll need permission directly from the president,” said Frost, ending the argument. He looked over at Lucas. “I’ll ask if it’s worth it.”
“I think it is,” said Lucas.
“Good.” The director looked at Smith, in effect ordering him to be quiet. The decision had been made.
“Mara has information for us on the Vietnamese weapon,” said Lucas, eager to move on.
“I found their delivery system,” said Mara. She was still catching her breath—Lucas thought she must have run all the way from the information center to the meeting. “Missiles. They’re Rodong 1s—extended range Scuds. The technology was obtained from North Korea. I have a presentation.” Mara held up a thumb drive.
“Possibly Rodong 1s,” said Smith. “Or Scud Cs. Or Scud ERs. E-R is a Western designation,” he added, putting on his most professorial voice. “It simply means extended range. If these really are those missiles, then Hong Kong is within their reach.”
“Yes,” said Mara as she placed the drive into the computer slot in front of her. “I think we have the entire picture now.”
* * *
Mara did her best to control her excitement as she went through the slides she’d hastily put together after getting the missile data. She’d never been much of a PowerPoint jockey, but the presentation program was ubiquitous inside the agency and in government at large. Most people were so conditioned to seeing pictures and bullet points that if you didn’t use it you were generally not taken seriously.
“Bottom line—material for at least two dozen radiological bombs. Dirty bombs,” she said, clicking into her last slide. “And these kits that the North Koreans supplied—two dozen at least.”
Mara left the slide on and looked around the table.
“There may not be as many missiles. But the mines in the area could contain at least that many. There could be as many as six or eight with TEL launchers in each shaft. We don’t have an asset with ground-penetrating radar deep enough to locate them. Not in the area.”
“Why not?” asked Frost.
“There are only two satellites, and frankly, everyone thought the Vietnamese were already well mapped. It will take at least another forty-eight hours for anything with close to the ability we need to get
into range. And by then—”
“What about this interpretation of the technology sale from RNK,” said Smith, using the abbreviation for North Korea. “You buy it?”
“I know it’s open to interpretation,” said Mara. “They’re concluding that these were kits based on where they were originally shipped from—the manifests that are recorded were machine parts coming from Kimchaek. Now that port is near Musudan-ri, the North Korean assembly and launch facility on their east coast. As I said earlier, there’s a bit of guess work here, but it does follow a logical progression.”
“Interesting,” said Frost.
“I’m convinced,” said Smith suddenly.
Mara looked at him, surprised. It was the first time she’d heard the analyst agree with anyone, let alone her.
“If they did make these alterations,” continued Smith, “then these missiles are potentially a big problem.”
“There are twelve possible shafts, clustered in threes and twos,” said Mara.
“We should hit all of them,” said Smith.
“That’s too many missiles,” said Mara. “We have to send someone there first; if we get someone on the ground, he or she can check it out.”
Frost shifted in his chair beside her. She knew he was interpreting it as another play on her part to get over to Vietnam. But in truth, she realized that would take too long.
“Who?” asked Frost.
“Someone already in country,” she said. “Roth Setco would make sense.”
“Not Setco,” said Lucas. “We need him for Kunming.”
“How about Zeus Murphy?”
“Maybe. I don’t know.”
“Let’s work on that,” said Frost, picking up the phone. “In the meantime, I’ll update the president. We’ll meet again in two hours.”
28
Forthright, Ohio
It was a beautiful day, bright and just a touch on the crisp side, a perfect day for farm work. Or, if you didn’t have to do farm work, for just walking through a field.
After breakfast, Josh borrowed a light jacket from his cousin and went out in the back for a walk. He took off the jacket by the time he reached the old well pump about ten feet from the old section of the house. He draped it carefully over the handle—the pump still worked, though it was generally used only by the kids looking for a drink without having to go inside.
