by Larry Bond
“The recording,” continued the senator, annoyed at being interrupted. “Who gave it to you?”
“No one gave it to me.”
“Your CIA handler didn’t give it to you?”
“I don’t have a handler.”
The senator frowned.
“Sixty seconds,” said Grasso. His tone made it clear that that was all the senator was getting. He was looking directly at his watch, and his gavel was poised to strike.
“Mr. Chairman, I want to submit that we cannot, and should not, take action based on ephemeral information from a possibly biased source, who may or may not have witnessed an isolated incident in an obscure—”
“Time.” Grasso pounded the gavel.
But while the chairman could keep the speakers to their time limits, he had no control over what they said. As the session went on, it became clear that the majority on the committee was unwilling to take any action against China, and would certainly not authorize aid to Vietnam. One said that he would be in favor of aid if the UN passed a resolution condemning China. As China was able, as a member of the security council, to veto any resolution—and already had twice—this was tantamount to saying that he would never support aid, except that he phrased it in a way that made most people think he might.
Josh, thinking of the dead people he’d seen, of the buried hand of the corpse he’d dug up, of the girl, Mạ, whose parents had been killed and whose village had been wiped out, felt sick to his stomach.
At least none of the senators called him a liar. As the meeting went on, Josh tried to lengthen his answers so that they contained actual information. But the senators were on to that ploy, and soon began simply to ignore him, pontificating at will without bothering to ask a question or even glance in his direction. One or two made conciliatory gestures in his general direction—one even said he had been very brave to have escaped the war—but for the most part he was an accessory at best, and a potted plant at worst.
Finally, the ordeal was over. Grasso, clearly worn by the proceedings, thanked Josh for his time and “your unselfish devotion to our country.” With a loud clap on the gavel, some of the longest and certainly most frustrating hours of Josh’s life came to a close.
~ * ~
5
On the border of China and Vietnam
Zeus saw the Chinese soldier stop, push his head down as if in disbelief, then start to raise his rifle.
From that point, the world became a gray funnel. He couldn’t see or hear.
He could feel. And what he felt was his body rushing through the night, legs and arms pumping. He leapt onto the soldier’s chest. They fell to the ground.
Zeus let go of the explosive as he rolled to his right. He dropped the plunger. In the same motion he flailed at the soldier’s chin and neck, smashing them first with his forearm, then his fists. The gray funnel became a black ball, a hard knot of fury.
He didn’t breathe. His heart didn’t pump. He just punched.
Something grabbed his back. He spun, ready to strike his second assailant.
It was Christian. He just barely stopped himself from punching him.
“He’s down. He’s down.”
Zeus leapt to his feet, grabbed the explosive pack and the detonator mechanism up. Meanwhile, Christian grabbed the Chinese soldier’s legs and pulled him under the nearby APC.
“Take his pistol!” hissed Zeus, grabbing the soldier’s assault rifle.
“No other guards,” said Christian. “Think they heard?”
“Too late to worry about,” said Zeus. He pointed to the right. “We can crawl around that little mound to the truck.”
“I don’t think I can do it.”
“Come on, Win. You got this far.”
The men who were loading the fuel tanks were about fifty feet away. Zeus heard them talking as he crawled forward.
He stopped when there were just two trucks between him and the pump apparatus.
If he could make it to the other side of the apparatus without being seen, he could plant the bombs right on the machinery itself. The explosion would very likely take out the tank below.
One of the trucks he had passed began to move. Zeus dropped to the ground.
The men waved it forward. Zeus watched as it was filled. A red light came on near the pump. There was a shout. The light went off. Another truck started up.
He wasn’t going to get any closer than this, and if he waited too much longer, he’d be found.
Zeus crawled under the truck he’d been hiding behind. He rolled onto his back. He’d plant the charge against the chassis, and hope that the explosion was large enough and close enough to affect the pumps.
Blood rushed to his head as he flipped around. A wave of blackness shot through his brain and body.
Get through this, he told himself. But his brain remained in the dark static.
Zeus breathed slowly, willing his full consciousness back, but unable really to effect that—unable really to do anything but lie on his back in absolute darkness. The machinery hummed nearby. The ground vibrated. A few voices, nonchalant still, punctuated the deep hums.
Beyond that were the noises of the jungle: cricks and creaks and carrumphs, the soft whisper of water much farther off behind them all.
Christian, of all people, brought him back.
“Where do we plant these?” he asked, tapping Zeus’s side.
“Under the center of the trucks,” said Zeus. “Or else near the gas tank—the truck’s gas tank. Whatever you can get to.”
“One apiece?” asked Christian.
“Yeah. They’re awful close,” said Zeus.
“They all went over to that truck at the far side,” said Christian. “They’re grabbing a smoke.”
Zeus turned his head. He didn’t see anyone nearby, and assumed Christian was right.
“String the wire back toward the berm where we can hide,” he told Christian. “You know how to connect them?”
“Yeah. Same way they were, right?”
“Exactly.”
Zeus scolded himself. He should have laid this all out before they started. He was flying too much by the seat of his pants—a good recipe for disaster.
“You take the two trucks to the left of us,” Zeus told Christian. “I think your wires will reach. Two charges per truck.”
“Two?”
“I don’t think we better risk doing more than that,” said Zeus. “Their break isn’t going to last forever. And that missing guard is going to be a problem. I’ll get this truck, and maybe two others. Anything happens, get the hell out of here.”
“No shit.”
Zeus could see again. Gray shades mostly in the dark, but it was something.
He went to work. Setting the charges was easy—Velcro straps were fixed to each, the ultimate in user-friendly destruction. He twisted the wires out, made sure of the connections—the terminals had jumpers so that the bombs were set in parallel rather than series, ensuring the others would blow even if one failed.
He crawled across to the next truck. He had four more packs. He set two, then crawled to the side, gathering his strength before pushing over to the next and last vehicle.
Just as he was about to get up, he heard the rough cough of a truck engine starting above him. He pulled back, centering himself, worried that he would be run over. In the next moment he realized the engine had been started on the next truck over, the one he’d been about to climb under. He watched the wheels move, the vehicle being maneuvered out of its spot.
This is as far as you should go, he told himself.
A second later, another truck pulled alongside the vacated space. He caught a strong whiff of diesel—the truck had just been freshly loaded.
He’d do one more.
The truck stopped and the driver hopped out of the cab. Zeus bellied across the open space to the other truck. His fingers fumbled for the explosives, made the connections, unraveled the wire. There was a knot—he ignored it, stringing ba
ck to the other truck, pushing now, careless and frantic, even as a voice inside his brain told him to calm down, to go slow and not leave himself so vulnerable to stupid mistakes and the great weight of chance and disaster that accompanied them.
Christian was waiting for him back at the berm. Zeus took his wires and wordlessly connected them to the plunger, moving quickly.
“When are we going to detonate it?” asked Christian.
Zeus’s answer was to press the plunger. In the next moment, the night exploded, a fireball rushing like a volcano across the Chinese fuel trucks.
~ * ~
6
CIA headquarters, Virginia
Mara leaned back in the seat, watching the C-SPAN feed on Peter Lucas’s office television. The committee meeting had been a fiasco. Josh looked even more worn than the day she’d rescued him.
“Well, that’s the last nail in that coffin,” said Lucas, turning the television off with his remote control.
“What’d you expect? Damn China lobby’s been working overtime,” said Grease. “Half the people on that committee are in Beijing’s pocket. Greene is never getting a bill through Congress. He’s lucky he won’t be impeached for suggesting it.”
Lucas fiddled with the Coke can on his desk. It was empty and slightly dented, kept there as a toy. He looked at Mara. “Maybe we can open up the old Sky Acres Express.”
“I’m sure it’s possible,” she said. “If you can get the money.”
Sky Acres was the name of an air transport company Mara had used to bring Russian weapons into Malaysia. The company—actually a pair of pilots who would kill their grandmothers if the price were right—had flown a wide variety of gear to the forces fighting the Chinese-backed insurgency. Using Sky Acres had allowed the agency to move much quicker than it might have. More important, it made possible deals with middlemen that might have been embarrassing or even impossible through regular channels.
“You’ll never get a go-ahead,” said Grease. “Not legal.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure,” said Lucas. “Frost has already floated the idea.”
“This is different than Malaysia,” said Green. “You have a moratorium you have to deal with.”
“The director is working on that,” said Lucas.
“I don’t want to hear it,” said Grease.
“You didn’t.”
The moratorium—actually a law banning American participation in weapons sales to a long list of countries—was stringent enough to forbid the indirect sales covered by Sky Acres, according to every agency and administration lawyer who had gone over it. That was largely because, while it was never publicized by the congressional aides who drew it up, the law was a response to the shipping of the Russian weapons into Malaysia, which had made use of a loophole in previous export controls.
“They need a lot of help,” said Grease. “A lot of it. This isn’t Malaysia. The sort of things Vietnam is going to need are big. Hell, they’re a third-world country facing a first-world army. They need a lot of weapons. Antitank missiles, SAMs.”
“I don’t know if we could find that kind of materiel,” said Mara. “We tried to get antitank missiles to use against bunkers.” She shook her head. “I don’t think we could find more than a half-dozen antitank missiles from Syria, or even Iran. Not even if we paid through the nose.”
Lucas rolled the can across the desk, catching it with his right hand, then sending it back across to his left.
“You know, bottom line here, Peter,” said Grease, “the Vietnamese don’t have a chance in hell. They’re going to be overrun in a week’s time. We’d be better off shoring up Thailand.”
“How do you do that once Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia are gone?” asked Mara. “They won’t stand a chance.”
“Well, that’s your answer right there,” said Grease, getting up. “I’ll be upstairs if you need me.”
“So, what now?” Mara asked after Greene had left. “For me.”
“Play it by ear.”
“What’s that mean?”
“Let’s see what shakes out. Officers get outed all the time, Mara. It’s not the end of the world. Focus on the job—there’s plenty to do. You’re still with Josh?”
“What do you mean?” she asked, surprised at the question.
“With protective services. The marshals or whatever.”
“I came down to D.C. with them, yes. They got us a hotel in Alexandria.”
“You can let them take it from here.” Lucas picked up his soda can and put it in the middle of the desk. He started to lean back, in his chair, then almost sprung forward. Mara pictured a thought developing in his head, physically prodding him. “You’re not sweet on him, are you Mara?”
“Sweet?”
“You know what I’m talking about.”
“My job was to get him here.”
“Yeah, but. . . you guys aren’t. . . you know?”
“Would that be any business of yours if I was?”
“I, uh . . . I wouldn’t think he’d be your type.”
“Why?” Mara shot back. “Too smart for me?”
Mara could feel her ears starting to warm with the blood rising to them. She got up to go.
“Hey, listen, seriously,” said Lucas. “The marshal service has it from here. You need a place, right? In D.C.”
“I’ll get a place.”
“Don’t be like that. Take one of the Tysons Corner apartments. Kevin can work that up for you. Go talk to him.”
“Smith?”
“Yeah, he’s handling that sort of stuff these days.”
What a comedown, she thought. He had once been one of the agency’s top people in Europe.
God, was that her fate?
No—her career in the field hadn’t been a tenth as long as his.
“Mara?”
“I’ll go see him. Thanks.”
~ * ~
7
On the border of China and Vietnam
They didn’t stay to see the rest of the show.
“We shouldn’t run,” said Zeus.
But they did run, first to the fence and then on the other side, racing to the shadows of the trees and brush beyond the camp perimeter. They ran as quickly as they could, stumbling along the uneven ground. Floodlights came on, augmenting the red glow of the fire behind them. The lights showed where the sentry posts were—four of them, all along the fence on the Vietnamese side of the border.
Zeus headed west, continuing past the fenceline as it turned. Crashing through the fronds and branches of the low brush, he came to a thicket of trees, five trunks growing from a single hump, a fist of wood jutting from the ground. He slipped as he veered around it to the left. He grabbed one of the trees and spun down, landing on his butt. He collapsed backward, spent but exhilarated—happy and triumphant, as if he’d just accomplished a Herculean task.
And he had.
They had.
Christian collapsed next to him. “God, we’re lucky.”
“Damn straight,” agreed Zeus.
“I thought we’d be blown up, too. Did you see how far the blast threw us?”
“It didn’t throw us.”
“Hell, yeah, it did. Ten feet at least. Against the fence.”
Zeus blinked. He had no memory of that. Had it thrown them?
No.
“Look at that goddamn fire,” said Christian. He got to his feet as a fireball rose in the air. The ground shook.
Zeus took hold of the tree trunk and pulled himself up.
“Shit,” he said.
“Hot damn!” yelled Christian. He started to laugh. “Hot damn!”
“Ssssssh,” said Zeus. But he laughed, too.
They were lucky. Very, very lucky.
And now they had to get back.
Silently, without another word to each other, they started walking.
~ * ~
They walked for what they reckoned was a little more than an hour—both of their watches had stopped, Zeus’s be
cause the crystal had been shattered, Christian’s for some unknown reason. The clouds parted and the moon moved over them as they walked, showing the way. The Chinese had undoubtedly sent patrols to find the saboteurs; they could hear occasional gunfire in the distance. But the patrols had apparently gone, understandably, in the direction they thought the attackers had traveled, directly across the border.
