Shock of War

by Larry Bond

  Until he spotted Walter Jackson’s frown.

  “You think you have an agreement, don’t you?” said Jackson after the military people had gone.

  “You heard them: they agreed Perry’s plan will work.”

  “No, they said if it was politically feasible. If. You don’t have the votes in Congress. Matthews won’t stand by idly if you send the troops on your own authority. It’ll be leaked within an hour of your giving the order. Probably within the minute. The admiral’s probably setting up an anonymous Twitter account to take care of it right now.”

  Greene looked over at his chief of staff, Dickson Theodore. Theodore had said nothing during the session. “Walter’s right. All the admiral’s talk about aircraft carriers? It’s code for keep us out of it.”

  “The Air Force is gung-ho,” said Greene.

  “The Air Force alone isn’t enough,” said Jackson. “And what do you think will happen the first time an airplane is shot down? It’ll be broadcast on the cable networks immediately.”

  “Congress will have a fit,” added Theodore. “Troops—even airplanes—violate the neutrality act.”

  “We’re not violating it,” said Greene. “We’re working around it. Allies are exempted. If we have a pending treaty with Vietnam, then by executive order they’re an ally.”

  “You’re starting to sound like a lawyer,” said Theodore.

  “That’s my degree over there,” said Greene.

  “We can’t get Congress to approve intervention,” said Jackson. “We took our best shot with Josh MacArthur.”

  “Maybe we should push for a vote,” said Theodore. “We do have the child. We could have her talk to the Senate.”

  Theodore meant the Vietnamese refugee they had rescued, Mạ.

  “No. I’m not going to use her,” said Greene. “She’s just a kid. Besides, if Josh’s images don’t do it, nothing will. Senator Grasso’s hearing should swing some votes.”

  Theodore’s eyes widened: Don’t count on too many.

  “We can’t just let the Chinese roll over the country,” said Greene.

  “We can keep working covertly,” said Jackson. “Until we can get public opinion on our side.”

  “Covertly isn’t going win the war,” said Greene.

  The Chinese might be stopped temporarily by judicious strikes and against-all-odds operations, but eventually their superior firepower would win the day.

  Still, what were his other options?

  None.

  “We can at least ship them some weapons,” said Jackson.

  “Granted,” said Greene.

  That, too, was a problem—the neutrality act passed a year before forbade any outright sale or gift of weapons to any country in Asia, including allies.

  “Has to be Russian weapons,” said Theodore. “Through another country.”

  “Russia has been unwilling,” said Jackson. “The Vietnamese don’t have the money. And the Chinese are already giving them some good business. State has already made some backdoor inquiries.”

  “They’re just not talking to the right people,” said Greene. He looked over at his appointment sheet for the next two days, then picked up his phone. “Marlene, that reception at the Polish embassy tomorrow night. Could you find out somehow if the Russian ambassador is expected to be there?”

  “You’re not going to ask the Russian ambassador to supply the Vietnamese, are you?” asked Jackson when Greene hung up.

  “No,” said Greene. “You are.”

  16

  Off the south China coast, near Vietnam

  “Christian! Christian! Wake the fuck up!”

  Zeus pushed on the handle of the long oar, aiming the boat in the direction of the shore. There was no question that the patrol boat was coming in their direction—it seemed to have grown twice its size in just a few moments.

  “Up, Win, up!”

  Christian showed no sign of stirring. Zeus kept pushing with the oar, his muscles straining. Adrenaline flushed through his body. Everything went into the oar, every ounce of energy, every sensation. He could feel the ocean pushing back, trying to tackle him, but he wasn’t giving in—he was a quarterback in high school again, pushing through the line, squeezing for the last inch to make the touchdown.

  The patrol boat’s bow was head-on in their direction. Any moment now, he expected the forward gun to fire.

  Push, his body told him. Push!

  “Win, get your ass up!” Zeus yelled. He pushed harder. The muck gave way as he paddled, dirt and seaweed parting then pushing back.

  The vegetation was thick, but not enough to hide them. The thing to do was reach shore and run.

  Run!

  The word rumbled from his muscles, his legs twitching with it. Zeus pushed the oar until the boat hung up on a cluster of sand-encrusted rocks. Christian still hadn’t stirred in the bow. Zeus leapt forward into the water. He pushed the boat deeper into the weeds, then grabbed Christian’s shoulder. He didn’t try to rouse him; instead, he curled him over his back, hoisted him up, and staggered onto firm land.

  “You are damn heavy,” he muttered.

  He pumped his legs in the direction of a clump of low shrubs on his left. He ran past, chugging up a small incline to a larger cluster of trees.

  Run!

  Every muscle, every tendon and ligament in his body strained. But there was no question that he was reaching those trees. There was no question that he was moving away from the warship that was chasing them.

  Zeus got about forty yards into the jungle before his legs gave way. Even then, it wasn’t a total collapse or surrender; it was more like a gradual winding down, his strides shortening, his back bending, until he practically crawled. He sank to his knees, then fell flat forward, pushed down by Christian’s weight.

  Zeus lay on the ground for the length of one long, deep breath, then pushed up, rose, alert again, strength restored. He pushed Christian to the side and slipped back through the trees to the shore, looking out to sea.

  He couldn’t see the warship. He looked down at the ground, took a long breath, then a second—it was as if his eyes needed to be reloaded.

  Zeus raised his head. He spotted the patrol boat to his right, maybe a half mile off shore, no more.

  He turned back and went to Christian.

  “Up, Christian. You’re getting up now,” he said, prodding him with his foot. “I’m not carrying you any farther.”

  “Uhhhh?”

  “At least you’re not dead,” said Zeus. “Let’s go. Come on.”

  “What the hell … what’s going on?”

  “There’s a Chinese patrol boat. Come on—we must be really close to the border. We may even be over it. Come on.”

  “Shit.”

  Zeus took Christian’s arm and pulled him up.

  “How did I get here?” asked Christian.

  “I carried you, you bastard. Let’s go.”

  Zeus tugged, then let go and began trotting farther inland. The jungle was thick; most likely the sailors wouldn’t follow too far inland.

  It didn’t matter. They would outrun them. And if they didn’t outrun them, he would shoot them.

  Zeus reached to his beltline. He’d forgotten the gun back in the boat.

  You’ll kill them with your bare hands if you have to.

  It was an idea, rather than a voice, something he felt rather than heard. Something he knew immediately was true.

  He would kill them—he would succeed, there was no question of it, no doubt, only dead certainty.

  The questions, the doubt he’d felt just a few hours before had disintegrated somewhere in the afternoon sun, dissolving into the steam rising from the shallow water above the sand amid the dank debris.

  Something rumbled in the distance.

  “What the hell?” said Christian, huffing behind him. “There’s not a cloud in the sky.”

  “It’s gunfire, not thunder,” said Zeus tightly. “Don’t worry. They’re still pretty far away. Run
. Run.”

  They ran for almost a mile, weaving through the trees, gradually moving uphill. There was no sign that they were being followed, and in fact the single gunshot they’d heard was the only indication that there were any other humans in the world nearby. Still, Zeus kept running, his legs pushing onward. In a sense, his mind was no longer in control—his body was telling it what to do, or what would be done: They would run until their energy completely flagged, then they would rest for only a short minute, then they would begin again.

  It was as if the rest of his body no longer entirely trusted his brain, as if the questions that had bothered it earlier had shown it to be unreliable, unfit for command in a military sense.

  “Let’s go,” said Zeus, pushing through the thick weeds. “Come on.”

  “I’m here,” grumbled Christian behind him.

  “Faster,” said Zeus.

  “Shit.”

  Christian picked up his pace, pushing through the trees until he was only a few paces behind Zeus. The ground rose sharply ahead. Zeus took a breath, girding himself for the climb. Suddenly his foot slipped, and he found himself pirouetting to the side, falling into a small, narrow stream that ran in the crevice at the base of the hill. He landed flat on his back with a thud, his head smacking against a rock. He saw stars, or an approximation thereof; with a shout he twisted to his stomach and began up the hill, climbing first on his hands and knees, then pushing to his feet and trudging up. Christian grabbed the back of his shirt, pulling him to the summit of the hill. There they both collapsed, finally out of breath and energy.

  “Are they still after us?” managed Christian after a few minutes of rest.

  “Probably,” said Zeus.

  “I just want to stay here.”

  “Yeah,” admitted Zeus.

  But they both got up.

  They walked at a good pace across level ground. The trees were thicker and closer together than before. Every so often, Zeus turned to see if they were being followed. But he found he couldn’t look more than ten or twenty yards behind them.

  He tried listening instead. But the jungle had too many noises for him to tell—birds in the distance, insects near and far, a frog somewhere.

  “They can’t possibly follow us through all this,” said Christian after they’d been walking for about ten minutes. “Why would they bother?”

  “Why would they fire at a fishing boat?” answered Zeus. “We’ll keep going for a while. It’s our best bet.”

  “You really think we’re in Vietnam?”

  “Maybe. More likely we’re still a few miles from the border.”

  “How many’s a few?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Zeus took the map from his pocket. It was wet, either from the ocean or the stream. He unfolded it as he walked, then refolded it so he could hold and look at a small portion in one hand.

  It was fine for roads, but trying to extrapolate the physical details of the coastline where they’d landed against the broad strokes of the map were next to impossible. They were definitely somewhere between Fangchenggang and the Vietnamese border, much closer to the border he thought than the city, but given the fact that they’d fallen asleep and drifted for hours, who really could tell?

  “I’m hungry,” said Christian.

  “Yeah, well, you see a McDonald’s, let me know.”

  “Why are you such a jerk?”

  “What?” Zeus stopped and turned around. Christian, a few feet away, glared at him but continued walking. “What do you mean, I’m a jerk?”

  “You’re always busting on me.”

  “You’re the jerk,” muttered Zeus, speeding his pace.

  “I’m a jerk?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You’re just jealous.”

  “Oh yeah, right.”

  Neither man spoke for a few minutes. Zeus’s anger gradually dissipated. It made no sense to get mad at Christian, especially now. And it served no purpose: The guy had been a jerk for his whole life; a sudden conversion wasn’t likely.

  “I mean it, Zeus.” Christian didn’t slow down. “You’re always riding me. You and your sidekick Rosen.”

  “Steve wasn’t my sidekick.”

  “Well I’m guessing he wasn’t your gay lover.”

  “Ha-ha. Hill rises to the left,” said Zeus, pointing.

  Zeus angled toward the hill. A narrow stream of water cascaded diagonally from above; he walked along it, crossing and recrossing to take advantage of the path. The vegetation thinned as they moved upward. Glancing back, Zeus realized that they had cut an easy-to-see path through the jungle as they brushed aside the thick vegetation; they would be easy to follow.

  “We’re going to have to keep going,” he said. “Up along this creek and a lot farther, some place where we can’t be tracked. We left a pretty big trail through the brush back there.”

  “You’re just figuring that out?” said Christian.

  “Yeah, actually.”

  “I’m surprised you admit it.”

  The steeper the grade, the slower Zeus went, until finally he was moving in what seemed like baby steps. Christian was even slower, pausing every third or fourth step.

  Zeus reached a clearing on the side of the hill. The ocean lay in glittery azure in the distance, sparkling with the setting of the sun.

  Belatedly realizing he was in the open, he dropped to his knees. He could still see the water.

  It was a breathtaking scene, barely a mile from the water. It was the stuff of postcards.

  Or would have been, if not for the trio of warships three or four miles from shore.

  There was no doubt that they were Chinese. They were big vessels, destroyers Zeus guessed, though he was not an expert.

  He saw something else near them.

  Probably a submarine on the surface, he thought, though from the distance it was hard to tell if it was even there.

  “What?” huffed Christian, dragging himself over. He collapsed next to Zeus.

  “You think the Chinese would keep their ships on their side of the border?” Zeus asked.

  “I have no clue.”

  “Do you remember from the G-2 estimates?”

  “No.”

  “I think they’d be near the border,” said Zeus.

  “So?”

  “Which means we’re near it. Maybe still in China, but near it.”

  Zeus stared southward. He couldn’t see any ships in that direction. But the way the land curved and jutted, there could easily be something closer to shore there. Or farther out—his eyes were tired, and the sun, now starting to set behind him, threw both glare and shadows across the water.

  “I think we should keep moving,” said Zeus. “Put more distance between us and the sailors, if they’re still following. Once it’s dark, we can rest for a little while, then get over the border. Or go farther, if we’re already over. Maybe we’ll run into some Vietnamese army patrols.”

  He tried to force optimism into his voice. Christian didn’t answer, but rose before Zeus did. They walked for twenty minutes, moving along a rocky ridge, then down the path of another creek bed. About halfway down, Zeus decided to set a false path for anyone following. He had Christian stay where he was, then went through some brush, making sure to break several branches to make it obvious someone had gone through. He came to a clearing after about a hundred yards. This was an unexpected break: anyone tracking them would think they had gone clear through it. He backed out, retracing his steps to Christian.

  “I think I heard some noise in that direction,” said Christian. He pointed southwest.

  “What kind?”

  Christian shrugged. “Trucks.”

  Zeus got the map out. It didn’t show the border area in any detail.

  “Let’s cut west,” he told Christian.

  “Why?”

  Zeus shrugged. He honestly had no answer.

  * * *

  About a half hour later, they came to a narrow, hard-packed dirt road
that twisted in both directions north and south. Judging from the piles of gravel to the side, it had either recently been built or reconstructed.

  “Doesn’t look as if it’s been used much,” said Zeus, staring at the surface. There were some tire tracks, but not the deep ruts that moving an army would leave.

  “How much longer are we going to walk?” asked Christian.

  “If we’re already in Vietnam, we should find a patrol soon.”

  “If they don’t shoot us.”

  Zeus started walking along the edge of the road. The Chinese had invaded in the western area of the country, aiming at sweeping south past Hanoi. The fact that they had been planning an amphibious assault suggested that they were going to cut off the northern portion of the country, avoiding the difficult Quàng Ninh highlands as well as the government’s center of power. They could then simply strangle what remained.

  But even with their basic plan, they wouldn’t leave the frontier completely devoid of troops.

  To Zeus, that meant they were already past the border. Otherwise they’d have seen more evidence of the Chinese army by now.

  He walked on, following the road. It was getting dark now, hard to see. The shadows took on odd, threatening shapes.

  Zeus tried warding off the boogies of his imagination by considering different strategies, things he would do if he were the Chinese. Where would he land in an amphibious attack? What would he do about Hai Phong, the port to the south? Would it be worth taking Hanoi at all, since clearly what the Chinese wanted was Vietnam’s rice and oil?

  “There,” said Christian, suddenly rushing up to him and grabbing his arm. “Hear?”

  “Huh?”

  “Sssh. Listen.”

  He could hear motor sounds, an engine. Not far away.

  “Just for safety, let’s get off the road,” said Zeus.

  “Which way?”

  “Here.” Zeus crossed to the west. He slipped through the trees, his heart suddenly pounding hard—they were going home soon, finally, which meant that they’d be able to sleep, and get something to eat. He was starving.

  Not home, exactly. Vietnam was far from home. But it would do.

  After he’d gone far enough that he couldn’t see the road anymore, Zeus turned left and headed south. The brush was so thick that it cut at his shirt.