Shadows of War rdr-1

by Larry Bond

  “Josh, don’t get angry with me. I’m trying to help. I know you’re going through a lot.”

  “You have no idea what I’m going through, mister. No fucking idea.” Josh looked over at Mạ. She looked worried, as fearful as he had seen her with the soldiers. “I have to go,” he told Lucas. “Call me back in two hours. No, three.”

  “Will you leave your phone on?”

  “It will be on in three hours.”

  “It would be more helpful — ”

  Josh slapped the phone off and put it in his pocket.

  “Come on, Mạ,” he said. “Let’s find a better place to hide.”

  12

  Northern Vietnam

  Mara ran toward the gunfire, AK-47 poised. The gunfire had a very familiar ring to it — a thick, almost bell-like sound that she associated with the Chinese Type 99 assault rifle, the upgraded bullpup-style gun China had developed and “sold” to the rebels in Malaysia.

  Not good.

  Her muscles tensed, her vision narrowed. She sprinted from cover to cover, ducking behind large trees, staying as low to the ground as possible. There was another road through the jungle ahead, maybe thirty meters away.

  By the time Mara slid in behind the broken trunk of a large tree near the road, the shooting had stopped. She waited there for a moment, ducking her head left and right to see, trying to find an angle that might reveal what was going on.

  Nothing.

  Mara eased forward, finger edging against the rifle’s trigger, resting there ever so lightly.

  Something moved on the left. She spun, dropped to her knee — and just barely kept herself from firing.

  “Ho-ho, you take time catching up,” said Jimmy Choi. “All the excitement done.”

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  Mara’s curse only made Jimmy laugh harder.

  “What the hell is so funny?” she asked. “I could have shot you!”

  “You’re a professional. You wouldn’t shoot.”

  “Goddamn it.”

  “Come on. We have something for you.”

  Still seething, Mara followed the mercenary out of the jungle onto a hard-packed road. A Chinese EQ2050 Hanma — the Chinese version of the Hummer, also known as a Mengshi or Dongfeng Hanma — sat just off the road. Four Chinese soldiers had been killed in the field. Jimmy’s men dragged the dead bodies into the jungle.

  “One of us not a good shot,” said Jimmy, pointing at a body that was stained with blood. “Bad luck for us. We have only three uniforms.”

  “You did this for the uniforms? You took off, took all this risk, for the uniforms?”

  “Hanma big bonus. Chinese Hummer. Voom, voom.”

  “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. No. No. You have to tell me what the hell you’re doing. Don’t you understand? You work for me.”

  Jimmy Choi laughed.

  “Don’t laugh at me. Damn it — you don’t just take off like that.”

  “We get job done.” Jimmy shrugged.

  “Sure, if they don’t stop us.”

  “Bad luck for them they stop us.” He pointed to one of the bodies. “Those would fit you. You try. We close our eyes.”

  * * *

  They took the Chinese Hanma as well as the troop truck, threading their way north with help from Jimmy Choi’s images. Except that it squeezed her boobs, the uniform fit fairly well. She didn’t look very Chinese, however, and the general strategy was to avoid getting very close to the Chinese army if possible.

  Soon after they stole the truck and the uniforms, Lucas called in with another update on the Chinese situation. They were continuing to concentrate their efforts farther south and west; the only units in Mara’s area were small scouting parties, probing defenses and looking for resources that might be useful.

  He gave her a precise location for the scientist — two miles from a Chinese forward operating base being constructed in Lai Chau Province.

  “Well at least he’s not in it,” she said sarcastically.

  “They actually don’t have a lot of troops in the area around the base,” said Lucas. “They’re focusing their efforts farther south.”

  Mara knew the troop estimate had come from analysts who were basically making educated guesses from satellite photos. She knew better than to trust them.

  * * *

  Shortly after eleven in the morning, she and Jimmy Choi’s team reached the heavy jungle area surrounding the Hoang Lien Son nature preserve. They went up a small streambed, stopping near a small copse about a quarter mile from the road to rest. Twelve kilometers separated them from the spot where Lucas had said the scientist was hiding.

  “Hey, glamour girl, we’ve been waiting for you,” said DeBiase, answering a split second after the connection went through. “What’s going on?”

  “You tell me. Where’s our subject?”

  “Hiding. We’ll contact him as soon as the sun goes down.”

  “You sure he can last until then?”

  “He tells us he’s fine.”

  “This guy’s for real, right, Million Dollar Man? Because if he’s not, I’m going to be seriously upset.”

  “We’ll have a full brief for you tonight, Mara. We should be able to get you in direct contact with him right before the rendezvous. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “Everything going well?”

  “As well as could be expected.”

  “What do you think of Jimmy?”

  “He’s a nutjob.”

  “In a good way, I hope.”

  “Not necessarily.”

  “He’s one of the best,” said DeBiase, a little too cheerfully.

  “That’s damning with faint praise,” said Mara. “I’m going to get some sleep. Call me if anything changes.”

  “You’ll be the first to know.”

  13

  Beijing

  The news that the Chinese troops had massacred several villages did not surprise Premier Cho Lai. The men were peasants, poorly educated, and raised to believe that all races were inferior to the Chinese. The incitements that their commanders had given them to join the battle had undoubtedly pushed them to believe that their enemy was little more than rats to be eradicated as any exterminator would.

  But the implication of the message that his intelligence network had intercepted — that there was a Western witness who had evidence and who might be believed in the UN — was more problematic. While the premier was sure of the Russians, the French assurance was not on very firm ground. If France caved in to American pressure — and Cho Lai had no illusions about where the U.S. would stand — then the Poles would be next, followed by the Germans. He would have to follow through on his threat to pull the country’s deposits from the French banks, thereby weakening the country’s investments elsewhere. The situation would be difficult.

  At some point he would have to confront the rest of the world, but he greatly preferred to do it later, after Japan if possible.

  The real problem was the U.S. president. Cho Lai had believed that he, of all people, would be happy to see the Vietnamese crushed. For a brief time he had even toyed with the idea of inviting the Americans to take part in the feast. But the American was a wily opponent, crafty and sure of himself.

  The ancient emperors would have been pleased to take on such a worthy enemy.

  But that did not make the problem any less vexing. The scientist had to be dealt with. Immediately and discreetly.

  Cho Lai turned to General Lang. “Get me Colonel Sun. I will speak to him personally. No one else.”

  14

  Western Vietnam

  Jing Yo didn’t expect Colonel Sun to be in too good a mood when he returned to Na San from the division meeting; that would be against his character. Still, given that they had achieved all of their objectives, and that by all reports the Chinese army was advancing at an even quicker pace than expected, he did think his commander would be at least neutral. But the frown on the colonel’s face was
obvious even from fifty paces as he stepped off the helicopter.

  “The camp at Ba Nheu Sang,” barked Sun as he strode toward the hangar building that had been commandeered as the commandos’ headquarters. “The scientists.”

  Jing Yo fell in, unsure what the problem was.

  “Your hands?” asked the colonel as they walked.

  “My right hand was burned but has been treated.” He held it up. The bandage covered the palm; the rest was fine. “The wounds are of no matter.”

  “Good.”

  Sun snapped off a salute as he passed the two guards at the hangar door. Ordinarily, Jing Yo had no trouble keeping up, but Sun’s anger was driving him at a rapid pace, and the colonel reached the door to his office several steps ahead of him. Sun threw the door open and went to his desk, a narrow metal table salvaged from one of the terminal offices. The room itself had been used as a storehouse for parts until the Chinese takeover. The bins, nearly all of them empty, lined the wall behind Sun.

  “Close the door,” said Sun. “The man you chased — you killed him?”

  The question had an accusatory ring to it. Jing Yo’s hand lingered on the doorknob as he tried to decide whether to remind Sun of his order or not. In the end, he decided mentioning it would at least put Sun on notice that he knew the full story, not whatever one the colonel was going to adopt.

  But of course, it had to be done judiciously. Not to avoid the truth, as his mentors would say, but to make the truth something all could view with calmness.

  Calmness being a relative quality in Sun’s case.

  “He had gone into the water, as I reported at the time,” said Jing Yo. “We were told to suspend the search. We were required elsewhere, with a higher priority.”

  Sun’s frown deepened, but he did not explode.

  “It may not even have been him,” said the colonel. “It probably wasn’t. This is what happens when we use general troops. Incompetents. Peasants. This was a job the commandos should have done.”

  “A problem, Colonel?”

  “An incredible problem, Lieutenant.” Now Sun’s temper flared. “A problem that must be rectified. That you will rectify.”

  Jing Yo waited. Given the injuries his unit had sustained, he had expected he and the surviving members would be rotated back home for replenishment and training. That was not a prospect he relished — much better to be in the middle of fighting, he felt — but he knew his men would welcome the rest.

  “Here. Look at this.” Sun reached into the pocket of his shirt for a piece of paper. Unfolding it, he handed it to Jing Yo. “This is a transmission he has made. An American. Josh MacArthur. A CIA agent, undoubtedly.”

  Jing Yo took the paper. According to the heading, it was a transcript of a transmission made within the past twenty-four hours by sat phone.

  “From this description — ”

  “The village at Pa Nam. Not the one you responded to that night,” said Sun. “They covered it up, but apparently not well. Their commander has been recalled.”

  Jing Yo nodded.

  “Peasants with guns. But we are the ones who have to fix it. Because,” Sun added derisively, “we are the only ones who are competent in the Chinese army. Only the commandos can carry out an order without screwing it up.”

  “Do we have the coordinates of the phone that was used to transmit this?”

  “We have an area location. The American spy made a second transmission a few hours ago. You’re to meet with an intelligence officer from divisional at Ba Hong forward operating base in an hour to discuss the latest information.”

  “Yes, Colonel.”

  Sun folded his arms in front of his chest, shaking his head. Jing Yo stepped back, bowed his head, then prepared to leave. As he reached the door, Sun stopped him.

  “Beijing has heard of your fine work,” the colonel said. “The premier himself asked about you.”

  Jing Yo felt his face flush.

  “It will be very clear that this problem originated with the regular army,” said Sun. “But we must not fail to correct it.”

  “I will correct it to the best of my ability, Colonel.”

  Sun nodded, dismissing him.

  15

  Northwestern Vietnam

  The small house and the buildings surrounding it looked normal from the top of the hill, and it was only when Josh and Mạ got a dozen meters away that he realized something was wrong. A pair of goats were braying in the yard between the house and the livestock barn, pleading hungrily for attention. They were standing at the edge of a pond so wide it blocked the way. It looked as if it had been there forever, yet it blocked off not only the yard but the driveway to the road, which easily twisted around several other obstructions on the three-hundred-yard path from the macadam.

  Josh guessed what had happened — a Chinese bomb had hit the ground and disturbed an underground spring or well piping. The goats might have been able to swim across, but the pond’s sudden appearance baffled and spooked them.

  The rear of the house had been hit by another bomb or missile. The explosion had cratered the rear third of the structure. Afraid of what he might find in the house, Josh decided not to scout it by himself; he didn’t want the girl to see any dead bodies. So he carried her around the back of the barn to a small saltbox shanty covered in sheets of rusted tin. Putting Mạ down, he knocked on the door, even though the building looked barely big enough to hold a few rakes.

  The structure shuddered with his tap.

  “Hello,” he said. “Xin chào!”

  No answer.

  The door was held in place by its odd angle against the threshold; he had to lift it up and toward him to open it. The interior was empty except for an old shovel and several seed bags of grain.

  “Here, come on,” he told Mạ, gently pushing her inside. “You stay here. I want to look at the rest of the farm. Stay.”

  He mimed her sleeping, and pointed to the seed bags on the floor. The girl looked fearful, almost on the verge of tears. Josh dropped to his knees, trying to explain that he would be back. He mimed himself walking around — fingers on his palm — and looking for trouble — hands cupped like binoculars — and then coming back. When he was done, she looked confused rather than reassured, but she stayed when he pressed the door closed.

  About ten feet of the side wall of the house had disintegrated, and there was a sizable hole where the floor had been in the back room. Josh squeezed gingerly around the jagged edge, slipping between the leaning interior walls into what had been a children’s bedroom. Except for the cracks in the walls and ceiling, it appeared entirely untouched by the chaos. Bedrolls were neatly lined up against one wall. A small shelf above them held a rock collection; stones of all sizes and shapes sat on the linoleum paper surface as if on display. Two dolls, one made of vegetable husks and the other of yarn, flanked the collection, as if they were guarding it.

  Josh tucked the yarn doll under his arm and went to explore the rest of the house. It was large and clearly belonged to a relatively well-to-do family. The furniture in the living room looked Western and new. The television was a large LCD screen.

  The blue power light was on. Curious, Josh went and pushed the Power button. The TV flicked off. He pushed it again, expecting that he would get a screen of static. Instead, he got a picture — snowy, but visible.

  A newscaster was speaking, not in Vietnamese, but in Chinese. Josh couldn’t follow what he was saying, but the graphics that flashed on the screen showed an arrow arcing into China, and then arcing back.

  Were the Chinese saying that the Vietnamese had attacked first?

  The newscaster’s face came back, angry, flushed.

  He was saying that, wasn’t he? Claiming the Vietnamese were getting what they deserved for having attacked first.

  But Josh knew they hadn’t. He’d lived through it. And he had evidence.

  He put his hand on his pocket, touching the digital video recorder.

  As he did, something cre
aked behind him. Panic seized him before he could turn around, before he could grab the rifle hanging from his shoulder. It was so important that he live, and yet here he had gone and let his guard down; he was going to die.

  But it was only Mạ.

  “You scared me,” he told her. “I told you to stay.”

  She held her hands out to him.

  “Look, a doll,” he told her, holding out the toy he’d found.

  She ignored it, raising her hands up and down emphatically. It was the signal they’d used while walking, indicating she wanted to be carried.

  “It’s okay. I’m just looking around,” said Josh, kneeling to talk to her. “Did you know this house? Did you know these people?”

  She didn’t answer, just kept pumping her arms.

  “Is this your house?” he asked.

  He tried to think of a way to put the question into gestures, looking upward, pointing at her. But she didn’t understand. She grabbed hold of his shirt and tugged him toward the window.

  “What’s up, Mạ? What’s going on?”

  She pointed through the window. He pulled the curtain back to see.

  There were soldiers in the field, moving toward the building.

  16

  The Pentagon

  Zeus propped his hands on both cheeks, holding his face about four inches from the surface of the conference room table where he’d taped the large-scale map of Vietnam’s western provinces. The map’s features were a blur of yellow, green, and brown, swirling before his eyes. He needed sleep, real sleep, and if he couldn’t get that, he needed coffee, the stronger the better.

  “Trying to learn by osmosis?” said Win Christian across the room. The snicker in his voice was anything but subtle.

  “I got the map memorized already,” Zeus said, lifting his head slightly. “I’m trying to blank out your face.”

  “Very good, Zeus. Just remember, I’m chief of staff. Anything you want, from dental floss to a weekend off, goes through me.”