by Larry Bond
“All right, Major,” said Baum, coming back on the line. “We are ten minutes from your target. We are going to make this very quick. Very, very quick.”
“Yes, ma’am. Thank you. Thanks.”
Zeus felt a wave of relief and gratitude. It passed quickly — the jeep veered sharply right, nearly running off the road. Zeus reached up and grabbed the side of the door, barely holding as the driver overcorrected. There was an animal or something in the road dead ahead — an ox or a cow, Zeus thought. Then suddenly they were weaving through four, five, six of them. A small figure ran toward them on Zeus’s side.
One of the men in the back began to fire.
“Shit!” yelled Zeus. “Stop! Stop!”
The loud report of the gun once again took away Zeus’s hearing, this time painfully. Wincing, Zeus saw the figure spinning to the right as they passed. He couldn’t tell if it had been hit, if it were a man or a woman — it disappeared into the shadows. They were past the animals as well — two houses appeared to the right, then several more beyond them, dark and huddled against the backdrop of the hills.
“No more shooting,” said Zeus. His voice buzzed against the bones in his skull, the sound foreign and extremely muffled. “We have to get past — we have to be quiet and fast.”
Whether the driver understood or even heard what he was saying, he kept the vehicle moving and stayed on the road, rushing past the small settlement. In the back, the two Joes eyed the shadows nervously, fingers on the triggers of their guns. Zeus turned around and motioned to them with his hands, trying to get them to calm down. He had heard the Vietnamese expression for calm or taking things easy, but he couldn’t quite remember it.
“Bình tĩnh,” he tried. “Bình tĩnh.”
It had no effect. The soldiers continued to look out the windows, clearly on edge. He worried their fingers would hit the triggers with every pothole.
35
Beijing
Cho Lai sat in his car, waiting for the security team to make sure the road ahead was clear. Lately there had been overnight protests in various areas around the capital, protests of a bizarre nature: desperate peasants would run out onto the highways and throw themselves down to be run over.
Which, in most cases, they were.
The first few had seemed like accidents, or simple suicides, if such desperate acts could really be called simple. Yet they had developed into something of a movement, with regular press coverage and copycats across the nation.
Cho Lai’s first reaction was contempt, and he still felt that way for the most part. But he also realized the depth of the people’s despair — China was suddenly sinking back toward chaos, and the people needed relief.
That was what the war with Vietnam was all about.
“How much longer?” he asked his driver.
“Security says ten minutes, Your Excellency.”
“They said that ten minutes ago.”
“Yes, Your Excellency.” There was a resigned note in his voice.
“How is your family?” asked Cho Lai, trying in a small way to show the man that he was not blaming him for the delay.
“Well, Your Excellency.”
“Very good. Very good.”
Cho Lai leaned back in his seat and picked up his phone. He might just as well get some work done. He took the notes his aide had prepared — because he preferred traveling alone, his aides were two cars back, behind the security detail — and began dialing.
Qingyun Pu, the general in charge of the air force, was his first call.
As usual, the general’s report was very upbeat and aggressive. Cho Lai appreciated this; talking to Qingyun Pu always put him in a good mood. He also had a nice way of painting the Vietnamese as inferior baboons.
He was in rare form tonight, despite the late hour.
“The savage enemy is being beaten into the ground,” said the general. He gave Cho Lai a mind-numbing list of statistics regarding bombs dropped and enemy installations destroyed.
“I have been hearing rumors of bombing missions that have struck the wrong targets,” said Cho Lai finally.
“Oh no, not at all. Rumors and innuendo — never worry about that, Your Excellency. There is so much infighting among the army — it’s a terrible rat’s nest.”
Cho Lai had no doubt about that. “What about their weapon,” he asked. “Has it been destroyed?”
“Not yet. The intelligence is incomplete.”
“I am told the data is incontrovertible.”
“Perhaps. But the sites have been inspected by our flights,” said Qingyun Pu. “We would think such a weapon would be visible. I must confess that given our searches and their results, I don’t believe it exists.”
That was not what Cho wanted to hear; it sounded too much like an excuse for incompetence. His intelligence people believed that the Vietnamese had obtained long-range missiles from North Korea and were planning on using them shortly.
North Korea. There was another problem that should be stamped out in a quick blow.
“Whether it is a rumor or not, any weapon that harms our people will be a blow to more than our prestige,” said Cho Lai sharply. “There will be consequences.”
“We have searched the area thoroughly,” said the air force leader. “There is nothing there. I have even ordered a bombing run or two. But, Premier, if you wish—”
“I wish more surveillance,” said Cho Lai. “And results.”
If the Vietnamese really did have missiles — and something deadly to put on them — Cho Lai wanted them destroyed before they could be used.
If they did launch the missiles, that could be used as part of the propaganda war, Cho Lai thought. It might in fact be very useful. On the other hand, there would be no practical way to retaliate — they were already doing as much to Vietnam as he dared. He needed the country to maintain its ability to farm and produce oil, otherwise there was no point to the invasion at all.
His intelligence people had made ridiculous predictions about poison gases and biological weapons, none of which Vietnam had — surely they would have been used by now. There was some word from sources in Hanoi, or supposedly in Hanoi, that the Vietnamese had managed to purchase a nuclear warhead. But Cho Lai dismissed that outright.
Most likely, the missiles had conventional warheads and would be fired indiscriminately at urban targets. But even so, those would kill many of his people.
The car lurched forward.
“General, I have other business,” Cho Lai said. “Keep me informed. Remember — results are most important.”
“It will be my pleasure to keep you updated, Your Excellency.”
Cho Lai hung up, wondering why all of his commanders couldn’t be so positive.
36
Above Malipo, China
Zeus checked his watch. They were making good time — the driver was going even faster than he had on the way here; Zeus had the bruises on his rump to prove it. Even so, they were never going to get there before the plane made its drop.
In fact, the MC-17 was somewhere just ahead, on the other side of a hill — how far, exactly, he couldn’t tell. According to the GPS, he was still nearly ten miles from the strip mine.
The driver suddenly veered to the left, turning so hard that Zeus almost flew out of his seat. The BJ’s wheels slipped, spitting gravel as they struggled to find their footing on a dirt path. A wall loomed on the driver’s side; Zeus saw it and involuntarily flinched, sure they were going to ram it. Somehow the truck veered off at the last moment, careening to the right and then once more straightening out.
“You’re going the wrong way,” Zeus told the driver.
The driver said something in Vietnamese. The road they’d been on had given way to an open space; they were on the rim of an open mine built on the edge of the hamlet. The terrain to the right dipped sharply; the ground to the left was almost nearly as steep.
“You better flip on the lights,” said Zeus. “Lights.”
He searched for the word in his memory but it wouldn’t come. The jeep continued on, the driver hunched over the wheel, refusing to slow down. They started down a hill, then took a sharp turn right, charging through loose dirt.
“Damn it,” yelled Zeus. “Where the hell are you going? Crap!”
The driver paid no attention. A few seconds later, he found a hard packed road and they started to climb. Zeus reached over for the paper map, held tight against the steering wheel by the driver. He refused to let go.
“Do you know where you’re going?” asked Zeus.
A torrent of words, all unintelligible, followed. In the middle of them, the driver veered hard to the left, and they were once again on a black-topped road. They accelerated, then suddenly took a hard turn right. Zeus flew forward, barely managing to get his hand out on the dash. He looked up and saw that they were on a road skirting a valley; they’d just barely missed going over the edge.
Something dark passed to their right.
The MC-17?
Zeus pulled up the sat radio.
“Bear, this is Greek,” he said, using the coded contact names. “Are we looking good?”
“Package delivered,” said the copilot. “Godspeed, Major — we’re silent coms from here.”
“Roger that.”
* * *
The rest of the trip was a succession of bumps and hairpin turns, the driver negotiating the narrow country roads and dusty mining lanes as fast he could.
By the time they finally reached the strip mine, every muscle in Zeus’s body had double-knotted itself around a bone. His fingers were tight claws, and when he got out of the BJ to get his bearings he had trouble moving his legs.
Some Chinese strip mines were massive. Vast hills and mountainsides were lowered by an army of large machines on a scale that dwarfed even America’s. The mines in this area, however, were on a smaller scale. This wasn’t out of concern for the small population scattered around the hills, much less the environment; it was a result of different feuds among the local and national leaders who had dibs on the land and the mineral rights, and therefore divvied up the plots in smallish parcels.
The mine where Zeus stood was relatively flat, the dirt and rocks stripped out for tantalum, used for capacitors and other electronic components. The yield had not been particularly significant, and friction between the Chinese government and Australia had led to the cancellation of the contract with the Australian mining company two years before; the Chinese had yet to restart the operation.
The center of the mine looked like a large, lumpy plate in the gray night. There were some ledges to the east, and another roughed out section at the south. Zeus dug into the backpack and took out the infrared monocle, one more goodie courtesy of Kerfer. He didn’t need the light to see; its sensors would make it easy to pick up the beacon from the dropped crates.
The on-off switch had jammed off, possibly because of the bumping he’d just experienced. Zeus had to pry the device on with the help of his combat knife.
Zeus scanned the site slowly, going left to right, looking for the skids. When he didn’t spot anything, he took another look at the GPS and began walking forward. Ten paces later he stopped and scanned again, and this time caught a red flash to his right.
The pallets had come down at the southwestern end of the site, resting on their sides against a low, uncut mound of earth about sixty-five yards from the GPS target. There were three of them, two leaning against each other on the side of the hillock, and the third upside down a short distance way. Each was stacked with large green boxes containing the weapons.
Zeus went to the farthest skid. It had apparently hit the hill as it landed, tearing some of the netting, though the boxes inside were still intact. He went to work with his knife, peeling back enough of the mesh to get one of the boxes out.
It was heavier than he thought it would be. The end thumped down as he pulled it out.
The two Joes ran over to help. They were excited, but carefully taking hold of one of the boxes, they flipped it over gently, dropping to their knees to open it. Zeus was amused; demolition experts always seemed to like to get their hands on new weapons.
The box contained the launching tube and the targeting assembly (technically, the Command Launch Unit or CLU), but not any missiles. It also included an instruction manual … in Hindi.
Fortunately, there were diagrams, and between those and Zeus’s familiarity training a few years before, he was able to get the weapon together and ready. He let the Vietnamese soldiers examine it while he went back to the skids.
Six missiles, each in its own crate, were netted to the skid. The other skids were a little larger, with eight missiles and two launch units apiece.
The three crates represented roughly a million dollars’ worth of aid to the Vietnamese. The launch units alone cost a total of just under half a million dollars.
Take out one tank, and the investment would have paid for itself. But if they hit just one, the mission would be a failure.
It could very well fail even if every missile hit. There were no reliable statistics on shoulder-launched Javelin strikes in combat — it was briefly used in combat in Iraq, but never in a large scale tank battle. A ratio of two shots per kill would be a reasonable expectation for a well-trained unit in the heat of battle; neophytes would do well to get close to that.
But even if they got one shot with every kill it might not be enough. There were upward of sixty tanks coming for them.
Zeus walked up the rise and waved in the direction of the jeep, which he could just barely see. They’d have to take at least two trips to get the missiles down the road to meet Trung’s advance unit. It might even take three.
The driver waved and started toward him. Zeus looked back to the north. Once again, seeing terrain in person made a world of difference — the road to the west was even narrower than he had thought. Trung could definitely hang up the tanks with a small force.
They’d try to come in the other end, sweep through the wide open area of the mine. If Trung was daring, he could mousetrap them — let them start across, then attack at their rear.
The Chinese tanks would be on the low ground, their support troops vulnerable from gunfire on the hills. The Vietnamese tank force — tiny as it was — would have a slight tactical advantage operating from the eastern flank if they joined the battle once it had begun. They’d never win a sustained exchange, but firing at the rear of the Type 96s would make thing a little less lopsided.
They didn’t really have to win. Just slow the Chinese down long enough for Kerfer and his crew to land and refuel.
And Zeus?
He’d leave before it started. Make Trung live up to his promise.
Could he resist the battle? He’d want to see how it went.
The truck came up. Zeus and the others began loading the missiles into the back of the jeep
They were nearly finished with the first load when they heard the sound of vehicles approaching.
They sounded as if they were coming from the east, which meant they were Trung’s. Zeus went to the cab of the BJ and picked up the handset to contact them, glad that they were moving quicker than he’d expected.
The hail went unanswered. That was to be expected, unfortunately: unlike the American satellite equipment, this was just a simple radio, easily affected by the terrain.
Zeus put the radio handset down, listening. The hills threw the sound around. The vehicles were coming from the east, but farther north than he expected.
That made no sense. Trung’s forces had to come through the mining area to get to that side for the ambush; he’d worked it out himself.
Unless …
“Get everything you can into the truck!” Zeus shouted, starting down the hill for the launcher. “Load it up! The Chinese are coming — they skipped around the roads and went farther east through the other mines. Come on! Hurry. Hurry!”
37
Da Nang
It was easy to find
a pilot in Vietnam — the entire Vietnamese air force had been shut down by the Chinese attacks. They were eager to volunteer, or so the liaison air force officer at the Hanoi air force headquarters told Kerfer when he called him from the CIA operations ship.
The officer told him he had two who could fly two-engined transports.
“American aircraft, Russian?” asked Kerfer.
“American, Russian, yes. Anything they fly.”
“Good enough for me,” said Kerfer. “You wouldn’t happen to have a plane I could rent, would you?”
The officer didn’t, but he knew of an air freight company grounded since the start of the war. A few more phone calls, and Kerfer had his plane and his pilots — and Uncle Sugar, as he called his CIA paymasters, was considerably poorer.
Setco, meanwhile, continued to shepherd his motley group of mercenaries. Besides the men on the ship, he had six Koreans in Ho Chi Minh City. Another three men — two Australians and a South African — were coming in from Thailand. He told them all to meet him in Da Nang, where the airport would pick them up around mid-afternoon.
“You have any Americans in your crew?” asked Kerfer.
“I don’t trust Americans, as a general rule,” said Setco. “Too idealistic.”
Kerfer decided he would ignore the remark.
“I’d like to run through the takedown before we get there,” he told Setco. “Make sure we all know what we’re doing.”
“We know what we’re doing.”
“Yeah, well, just to be sure.”
Setco frowned at him. It was the kind of frown that always tempted Kerfer for some reason; he wanted to knock it off Setco’s face with a solid punch. It wasn’t exactly a rational desire, and he stifled it.
“The chopper’s going to be here in ten minutes,” Kerfer told Setco. “I’ll meet you in Da Nang. I have to see how my friend Major Murphy is doing. I’ll pick up weapons and other gear while I’m in town. I should be able to find a warehouse while I’m there.”
