Edge of War

by Larry Bond

  1

  Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), Vietnam

  A state of emergency had been declared in Ho Chi Minh City. The army as well as the police patrolled the streets, and a strict curfew had been imposed. Army units were gathered at different points along the highways; tanks were being dug in and other defenses prepared. Militia—in most cases little more than vigilantes with rifles older than they were—mustered at various municipal buildings and trolled the residential areas in pickups and the occasional van.

  But the city itself seemed to be taking little notice of the crisis. Motorbikes, buses, cars, and trucks filled the highways in both directions; there was no mass panic or exodus.

  Concerned that the regularly scheduled planes would be booked or even diverted, DeBiase had arranged for a plane to meet Mara and the others. The charter would then take them to Tokyo. Leased from a small Japanese airline named Goodwill Japan, the aircraft was one of several used on an occasional basis by the CIA.

  The arrangement was straightforward. Mara would bring everyone to the airport, get through security, then go to the main terminal. She would page a ticket agent working for a regular airline but on the CIA payroll as a “friend.” The employee would help them through passport control and out to the flight, which was due to arrive no later than 5 p.m.

  Two hours from now.

  Josh was sleeping again. He’d have to wait until they landed in Tokyo to see a doctor. But it seemed like the best way to do things.

  They bogged down in traffic about four miles from the airport, and Mara had Squeaky change places with her so she was behind the wheel. Kerfer beeped the horn at her as she ran around the truck. He tapped his ear, indicating that he wanted her to turn on her radio. She got the truck going again, then did so.

  “What’s the game plan?” he asked.

  “Straight to the airport, like I said.”

  “No shit.”

  “Just follow me.”

  “Leave the radios on.”

  “The batteries going to last?”

  “We’re taking off in two hours, right? We got plenty of juice for that. Little Joe’s coming up to ride shotgun in the back.”

  “Why?”

  “’Cause I’m fucking nervous, that’s why.”

  Mara shook her head, but at this point there was nothing she could do about it. The SEAL hopped over the tailgate.

  “Little Joe, you got your radio on?” she asked over the circuit.

  “Big-time.”

  “Keep your gun in the bag. We don’t want to be stopped.”

  “We saw a lot of people with weapons.”

  “They’re militia. And they’re not white.”

  Mara saw a 757 lifting off in the distance as the traffic snaked forward. They’d be doing the same soon.

  As they edged toward the exit for Ha Huy Giap to get down to the airport, Squeaky saw that the ramp was closed, blocked off by a pair of military vehicles. Mara decided to try and talk her way through. She pulled off in front of the trucks, angled so she might squeeze past if one pulled back. The soldiers went over to the passenger-side window, eying Little Joe in the back suspiciously.

  Mara had to lean across the others to talk. She spoke in the quickest Vietnamese she could muster.

  “We have to get to the airport,” she said. “I need to get on the highway.”

  “The highway is closed,” said the sergeant in charge of the detail.

  “But I need to get to the airport.”

  “Not by this road. It’s closed.”

  She pleaded some more, but the soldier and the two privates with him simply walked away. Mara had to edge back into traffic.

  “Why didn’t you try bribing him?” asked Squeaky.

  “I’m just about out of money,” she said. “We could maybe buy a few loaves of bread; that’s it.”

  “Can’t grease a palm with spit,” said Squeaky philosophically.

  The ramp to Highway 22 was closed as well. Mara continued in traffic for another mile and a half, well past the airport, until she saw an open emergency ramp that led down to a city street. She followed several cars off, then began wending through the crowded, narrow city streets back in the direction of the airport.

  The traffic thickened steadily, gradually choking off to an unsteady crawl. When finally she came in sight of Tuong Son, the main road to the terminal, she saw why—the airport entrance was closed. Cars were being sent down the road to make U-turns before fighting their way back into traffic.

  “Stay with the truck while I find out what’s going on,” said Mara, hopping out.

  Kerfer got out as well, trotting up behind as she walked down the line of cars. A pair of armored personnel carriers sat in the middle of the airport entrance. Two military policemen were directing traffic—or rather, trying to wave it onward.

  “How do you get into the airport?” Mara shouted.

  One of the men held his hand up to his ear. Mara squeezed around the tangle of cars and ran over to him.

  “I have a flight,” said Mara. “How do I get in?”

  “No more flights today,” said the policeman.

  “I just saw a plane take off.”

  “No more flights.”

  “I need to talk to someone in charge.”

  The man ignored her.

  “Hey!” she yelled.

  He didn’t answer, turning instead to a nearby car whose driver was crying that she was lost.

  “We can just walk in,” said Kerfer. He pointed to the lot across from them.

  “What about the soldiers?” she asked.

  “We duck around the side, back on the block where we turned. Near the end of that taxiway. There’s no one there.”

  “You don’t think there are soldiers inside?”

  “We worry about them when we find them.”

  “It’s too risky. If we get arrested, we may never get out,” Mara told him. “Go back with Josh and the others. I’ll find the officer in charge here and find out what’s going on.”

  “Not by yourself,” insisted Kerfer.

  “You’re a pain in the ass,” she told him, starting toward the parking lot.

  “And you’re a bitch,” said Kerfer, walking with her. “I’d say we’re made for each other.”

  “Touch me and I’ll deck you.”

  “I’d love to get physical.”

  “I doubt I’m your type.”

  “I’ll just throw a paper bag over your head.”

  Mara would have decked him if they weren’t being watched.

  Kerfer started to giggle like a thirteen-year-old.

  Jerk.

  The soldiers wouldn’t even listen to her questions. Mara walked parallel to the building, looking for an officer. She found a lieutenant having a cigarette on the sidewalk. He told her the airport was completely closed.

  “I have a plane that’s meeting me,” Mara told him. “It’s a charter. I have a little girl and—”

  The officer cut her off, saying that she would need to take up her problems with the travel ministry. When she asked where the office was in the terminal, he replied that it was downtown, not here.

  “Who can I talk to here?” she asked.

  “No one,” he insisted. Mara pressed him for his commander’s name; the lieutenant finally gave her the name of a captain, who, he said, was back by the trucks where the traffic was being diverted.

  “We can walk down that alley there, hop the fence, and get in,” said Kerfer as the lieutenant went back to his men. “Easier than this bullshit.”

  “Yeah.”

  “What time’s our flight?”

  “It should be here in an hour,” said Mara. “But they’ll wait.”

  The area around the perimeter of the airport was packed tightly with buildings. They were halfway through them, heading toward the fence at the end of the runway, when DeBiase called her on the sat phone.

  “Bad news, angel. Your airport’s closed.”

  “No shit,” said Mara.
“Tell the pilot we’re going to hop the fence. Ask him where to meet.”

  “You’re not following me. They can’t land. The Vietnamese closed the airport to civilian traffic. They mean business. There are armored cars on the runway. Word is they’re using it for fighter operations tonight.”

  “You’re joking, right?” she said.

  “I wish. Apparently they have a dozen MiGs left and they want to make it easy for the Chinese to blow them all up,” said DeBiase, as sarcastic as ever. “We’ll get you out, don’t worry. Why don’t you go get something to eat? Get some rooms and relax for a while.”

  “You make it sound like we’re on vacation.”

  “You’re not?”

  2

  Washington, D.C.

  This was not the way they taught it in civics class.

  Then again, they didn’t teach civics anymore. They didn’t teach history, either. It was social studies, which was about as far from an accurate description as possible.

  President Greene leaned forward against the long table in the White House Cabinet Room, trying to contain his anger as Admiral Matthews lectured him on the dangers presented to aircraft carriers by aircraft. This was just the latest round of whining, protest, and foot-dragging from the service Chiefs, who were determined to resist Greene’s efforts to help the Vietnamese. Most of their resistance was passive-aggressive—find that in the social studies textbooks under separation of powers—but it was no less effective because of that. As far as Greene was concerned, it was a small step away from mutiny.

  A very small step.

  But the lecture was especially galling coming at five o’clock in the morning, an ungodly hour undoubtedly selected by the service Chiefs to keep him off guard. The bastards always fought at night.

  The president decided that it was time to put the admiral and his fellow members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in their place.

  “Apparently, Admiral, you’ve forgotten that I was not only in the Navy for over twenty years, but that I was an aviator and flew off of aircraft carriers. And protected them, I might add.”

  The admiral shut up. The generals around him looked—“chastised” wasn’t the word.

  “Peeved” was.

  Pampered jackasses.

  “Now listen to me,” said Greene. “You work for me. I understand the military damn well. I know pushback when I see it. I’m not going to stand for it.”

  Tommy Stills, the commander of the Air Force and a personal friend, started to protest. Greene put up his hand to indicate he shouldn’t interrupt.

  “I want U.S. ships close to the Vietnamese coast,” continued Greene. “I don’t give a crap about how the North Koreans are acting up, or how Russia’s alleged battle fleet needs to be looked after. Taiwan can rot in hell for the moment. I want ships close to the oil fields. Period. Now.”

  “Do you want us to run the blockade?” asked Admiral Matthews. “That’s the bottom line.”

  “I want us to ignore the blockade,” said Greene. “We had a submarine off Hai Phong. It was supporting a mission—why the hell was it ordered to leave?”

  “It had another mission.”

  “And that mission was more important?”

  The admiral took a second before answering. Undoubtedly he was thinking of Greene’s rank at retirement—captain—and found it galling to be questioned by him.

  When he finally did speak, Greene cut him off.

  “I thought it prudent to—”

  “You thought it prudent?” Greene was having difficulty controlling himself. Showing his temper was counterproductive to the Chiefs. Outbursts only built resentment, which encouraged more backstabbing, greater foot-dragging, and even less candor later on. Any display of temper would surely be reported to Greene’s enemies in Congress—now the Chiefs’ best allies—within minutes of the session’s end.

  But damn it, he was commander in chief.

  “Look, I’m not asking for a shooting war here,” said Greene, trying to dial back his emotions and change tactics. “I want us to act like a superpower. That’s what we are. We’re the only ones who can stand up to this bully. Admiral, I know you feel the same way. This is pure Navy doctrine.”

  Matthews nodded. Greene wasn’t really sure he did feel the same way. Matthews’s predecessor had been lambasted for acting too aggressively at several points during the Malaysian conflict. As the previous administration’s term wound down, he’d been dragged before not one but three different congressional committees and interrogated for his sins. The Army chief of staff, Renata Gold, had gone through the same process—one reason, Greene thought, that she hadn’t said a word the entire meeting.

  It was often said that generals always refought their last war. In this case, the war they were fighting was the one their predecessors had lost in Congress.

  But to be fair, Malaysia had been a real fiasco, with Greene’s predecessor caving disastrously toward the end of his term. The service Chiefs had no reason to see this any differently—there was no sense risking the lives of their people, or their careers, for a lost cause.

  “You realize that this is 1939 all over again,” said Greene. “Or maybe 1937. Same thing. Vietnam is Czechoslovakia.”

  “I don’t think anyone is suggesting we partition Vietnam,” said General Gold.

  “Good.” Greene didn’t know what else to say. He turned back toward Admiral Matthews. “Tell the Kitty Hawk to turn up the steam. And let’s have that destroyer—which one was it?”

  “USS McCampbell, sir. DDG-85.”

  “Get it near the oil fields below Saigon,” said Greene. “Posthaste.”

  “Aye, aye.”

  “Aye, aye, yourself,” said Greene, trying, though failing, to inject a lighter mood. “More coffee, anyone?”

  3

  Ho Chi Minh City

  Jing Yo’s decision to stop chasing his quarry for the time being was not a surrender, but a recognition of the simple fact that he had to bow to fate. He must accept things as they were, bend like the tree in winter under the weight of the snow.

  Nature made its own gesture, removing the rain that had made it difficult to drive and see. Jing Yo and Hyuen Bo stopped for a brief lunch, then set out again, moving at a good but not desperate pace. Considering the shelling an omen, he turned westward, reaching Route 14 in an hour. They passed several military convoys, but the soldiers took no notice of them, rushing north to meet the advancing Chinese army.

  Jing Yo was able to buy gas in Buon Ho; they bought some vegetables as well as a snack. They stopped once more in Dong Nar, a small town north of Cat Tien National Park. With their gauge near empty and their reserves gone, they found the town’s only gas station closed.

  Jing Yo drove down the quietest side street he could find. He found a row of cars parked behind some houses. He drove next to them, and within moments fuel was flowing down his tube to the scooter. But as he checked to see how close to full he was, a man came out from one of the houses and began shouting. Jing Yo yanked the tube out and whipped away, losing the scooter’s gas cap in the process.

  It was nearly six before they came within sight of Ho Chi Minh City. Jing Yo made his way to the Go Vap district on the northern side of the city.

  The area combined dense residential neighborhoods with farm fields close to the river. Jing Yo navigated toward a set of large fuel-storage tanks not far from the city university, crisscrossing through the traffic as he zigzagged toward them. Finally he turned down a dirt road that dead-ended at a field near the tanks. He turned down the lone intersection and drove to a large house that sat incongruously between small sweatshops and broken-down warehouses.

  A wide five-bay garage sat at the side of a large gravel parking area before the house. A gray panel van with a single round window sat in front of the last bay. Jing Yo parked his bike next to the van. He knew he was being watched, though there was no sign of a watchman.

  “You have to wait for me,” he told Hyuen Bo. “Just stay.”

>   The house was nearly two hundred years old, built in a European style with a two-story portico in front. Two men stood behind the pillars at the front. They held guns—not the AK-47s common in the Vietnamese army and militia, but newer and deadlier German submachine guns.

  As Jing Yo came up the steps, a thin man in his forties opened the door and stood on the threshold. He wore a black pin-striped business suit, and looked more like a banker than a butler or doorman.

  He was neither. His name was Tong, and he was one of a rotating group of assistants used by the woman Jing Yo had come to see.

  “Can I help you?” asked Mr. Tong, using English.

  “My name is Jing Yo. I have come to speak to Ms. Hu.”

  Mr. Tong stepped back, letting Jing Yo in. Jing Yo had been here several times before, but if the man recognized him, he gave no hint of it.

  “Sit here, please.”

  Jing Yo remained standing. The building smelled of exotic spices, jasmine and vanilla mixing with star anise and an earthy pepper. The wooden inlay of a dragon peeked out from beneath two heavy rugs. The chairs Jing Yo had been bidden to use were more than a hundred years old, made in and imported from France, and covered with Chinese silk that looked brand new, though it was as old as the wood.

  Mr. Tong returned. “This way.”

  Jing Yo followed him through the central hall of the house, out onto a glass-enclosed patio, and from there into a garden at the back of the house. An older woman, known to Jing Yo only as Ms. Hu, sat at a small table near the center of the garden, sipping tea. Behind her, water bubbled in a large fountain. Statues lined the pebbled paths and grottoes in front of the trees, shrubs, and flowers that were arranged in the various beds: Here a Buddha sat under the tree after his rapture. There a Foo lion guarded the symbol of life.

  “We have been expecting you, Jing Yo,” said Ms. Hu.

  Jing Yo bowed his head. Ms. Hu was small, not quite five feet. She was thin, though not quite so thin as to seem fragile. Her skin was extremely white, almost bleached, and far smoother than normal for her age, which Jing Yo had been told was near sixty. She wore a long dress. While of modern design, it was cut in a way that suggested tradition.