by Larry Bond
Not that he’d be able to walk to Hanoi.
He could if he had to. He would.
Josh gripped the rifle, ready to shoot the man’s friend. But no one came. There were no shouts, no alarms, no cries for help. It was as if nothing had happened.
But it had. The gun proved it. And the blood on his clothes.
Josh began walking. He went at a good pace for another half hour, perhaps forty-five minutes, before starting to tire. He was oblivious of the fatigue at first. Then the rock slipped from his hand. He hadn’t even realized he’d still been holding it.
He crouched down, hoping that by doing that he would avoid falling asleep as he had last time. His nose was starting to act up and he debated taking one of his pills. Finally he decided to risk one of the lighter ones and reached into his pocket for the pillbox.
His hand shook as he opened it. He had only four left—one white, small dose, three green ones. He picked the lighter pill out with his thumb and forefinger, but as he reached for his mouth it slipped from his grip.
Then he sneezed, dropping the case.
Josh went down his hands and knees, patting for the pills on the ground. He found only one—a white one, fortunately. He swallowed, ignoring the bitter aftertaste. Then he hunted some more, until finally he realized it was hopeless, and gave up.
He continued up the hill, his steps becoming shorter and more labored. He spotted a waterfall in the distance ahead, and made it his goal. It wasn’t until he reached it, some ten or fifteen minutes later, that Josh realized it wasn’t a waterfall, or at least it wasn’t now. Erosion from the seasonal storms had carved a sluice down the slope, but without a hard, steady rain the stream was dry. There was no water.
To his left, a ravine dropped into a cultivated field; Josh could see its edge through the trees.
If there was a field, there would be a village. He could get food there.
Steal food. He couldn’t trust anyone now. He’d check it out once night came.
Josh sat on the rocks that had formed the crest of the waterfall and studied the gun he’d taken. He’d handled plenty of rifles and shotguns on his uncle’s farm, but this was unlike anything he’d ever used before. It seemed to be made largely of plastic, which contributed to its odd feel in his hands. Its banana clip was located behind the trigger, bullpup style, something he knew was possible though had never seen. It had a large, M16-like carrying handle at the top, with a lever he surmised was the charging handle beneath it. The ejection port sat at the right side; fortunately he was right-handed.
He put the gun across his lap and peered down into the jungle. The friend of the man he’d killed was still out there somewhere, probably looking for him by now. There were bound to be many others as well.
Josh felt a twinge in his stomach—fear, regret that he had made the wrong choice.
I’ll just kill them all, he told himself. That’s what I’ll do.
The idea floated through his head, something foreign, not too theoretical to take hold.
~ * ~
Captain Lai’s frustration had ebbed somewhat since the commandos had left them to conduct the search themselves. He was glad to be rid of the lieutenant and his smart-mouthed sergeant; they were a clear threat to his authority. The search mission had seemed like a waste of time from the beginning, but it was a relatively easy task; he didn’t have to worry too much about his men, who he knew had been poorly trained. That wasn’t his fault—he’d joined the unit only a few weeks before—but he would surely catch the blame if they did poorly in battle.
Lai scrolled his arms together, trying to ward off the thirst that was always with him. He had not had alcohol for over two months, and he knew he would not have it now—he had made very sure not to bring any with him. But the urge was extremely strong, a desire beyond emotion that rose from every part of his body.
He craved the warm honey of the first sip as it spread from his mouth to every muscle and organ. He could taste the wholeness it brought, the way the alcohol—any alcohol, at this point—filled the other half of his soul, a complementary yin.
But he would not have any today, or any day for that matter. He would get through today, and the next one, as his counselor advised.
It was torture.
Lai turned abruptly, realizing that one of his sergeants was staring at him.
“Captain, the units are too spread out. We have many stragglers.”
“Then get them together,” said Lai.
“We’ll have to stop the search, sir.”
Lai waved dismissively. “Do it,” he said.
The sergeant bowed his head, and moved to spread the word.
Lai took his satellite radio from his belt and called division headquarters. Instead of getting the communications clerk, he was connected immediately to Major Wang, the chief of staff. He explained the situation, saying that he would need transportation when the search was completed.
“You should have stayed away from the commando,” said the major. “I told you earlier, once you are attached to anything Colonel Sun does, you are as good as dead to us.”
“I did try to,” said Lai. “I told him I had other orders. But he wouldn’t listen.”
“You’re an idiot if you think that is enough.”
Wang asked about transport.
“Did Sun release you?” asked Wang.
“I need to talk to him?”
“Did he release you?”
Lai was forced to answer that he had not.
“Then you will continue on the mission until you hear from me. I will see what I can do.” But don’t count on miracles, suggested Wang’s voice. “Really, the best thing you must do, from now on—is to stay away from the commando. From any commando.”
Wonderful advice, thought Lai as he returned the radio to his belt. But he wasn’t the one who had placed his unit so close to the spearhead of the attack in the first place.
“I’m going to scout up the way here,” he said aloud, though none of his men were nearby. “I’m going to find a good place for a command post.”
He hated the army. But it was his penance—if he had not drunk so much as a young man, his father would never have insisted that he join. He would be working now in the company with his brother.
The army could be a terrific opportunity for the right man. The right man could make use of the power and connections it afforded to advance. Even now, with the hard economic times, the right man in the army had less trouble than most.
Lai, however, wasn’t the right man.
Perhaps he could be. If he got through today.
The captain walked slowly uphill through the jungle, picking his way through the trees as they began to thin out. The vegetation amazed him. Much of southern China, where he’d spent the last lonely year and a half, was arid wasteland. Yet here, only a few kilometers over the border, plants of all sorts grew with abandon.
It was as if there were a curse on Chinese land. Or maybe the Americans and their agents had poisoned the Chinese countryside secretly, perhaps years or even decades before. The American war with Vietnam could easily have been just a pretext; while the two countries pretended to be at arm’s length now, everyone knew the Vietnamese were simply monkeys in the West’s employ. That was the way the Americans operated—lazy themselves, they got someone else to do the work for them.
As he started picking his way around the rocks, the captain heard a pair of voices talking in the distance below. Their voices were hushed— so soft, in fact, that at first he thought he was imagining them. He held his breath, listening as carefully as he could.
They were real voices, he decided: men talking about something back at home, talking about a son, a newborn, a child he had had to leave.
Lai took a tentative step in their direction, moving quietly. As far as he knew, there were no other units in the area. But the men had to be Chinese—they were speaking Chinese.
Right until the moment he saw them, sitting on the ground against a
large rock not twenty yards from where he had climbed up, the captain refused to believe that they were his soldiers. His entire unit should have been in front of him, stretched out through the jungle conducting the search. To find two men huddled here, far from where they were supposed to be and goofing off besides—the idea did not even seem possible.
And yet it was. They were so engrossed in their own conversation and the cigarettes they were smoking that they didn’t hear him until he was only a meter or two away. By then it was too late—the captain pushed aside a large fern and stood two arm’s lengths away.
“Captain!” said the man on the right, jumping up.
Startled, his companion jerked to his feet as well. As he did, he dropped a phone he’d been holding.
Incensed, Lai reached to his belt and took out his pistol.
“You have disobeyed your orders,” he told them, struggling to control his emotions. The words sputtered from his mouth, his anger twisting his tongue. “What are you doing here?”
“Captain, we needed a rest and—”
“Silence!” Lai pointed the pistol at them. “You rest when you are given the order to rest. What’s that mobile phone doing?”
Neither man spoke. Mobile phones and other communications devices were strictly prohibited to most of the Chinese army; even an officer like Lai was not allowed a personal phone and had to account strictly for his use of the satellite radio.
“The cell phone!” repeated Lai. He pointed the gun at the man who had dropped it.
“Captain, it is a satellite phone,” stuttered the man. “It doesn’t—it-it—.” He cut himself off in midsentence and dropped to his knees, begging for his life.
The captain’s anger only grew. He extended his arm, the pressure growing in his finger to fire. Finally, he did—and only a last-second force of will pushed the aim of the barrel straight up, sending the bullet harmlessly into the sky.
“Why do you have the phone?” said Lai after the shot finished echoing against the hillside.
The man on his knees could not respond, so Lai looked at his companion.
“We—we found it, c-clearing the d-dead with the commandos. Y-yesterday. It doesn’t work, Captain. There is a code—it won’t come to life. He just wanted to talk to his wife about his n-new son.”
“The commandos took satellite phones?”
For a brief moment, Lai’s spirit soared—here was something he could use to get back not just at the uppity lieutenant who had commandeered his men, but at Colonel Sun himself. But the look on the private’s face quickly brought him back to earth.
“They d-d-didn’t see,” answered the private. “We—”
“Weren’t you ordered not to take anything?” asked the captain, not quite ready to give up the possibility of revenge.
“Y-y-yes.”
“Get down the hill both of you,” Lai told them. “Find your sergeant and find your right places in the search. Go. Go now! Before I change my mind!”
The man who had fallen to his knees now dropped on his face, tears flowing from his eyes in gratitude. He began to babble about his son— the newborn they had apparently been speaking of earlier—and how the captain’s name would be added to the child’s.
“Go!” said Lai sharply.
The other man dragged him down the hill.
Lai waited until they were out of his sight, then picked up the phone. His first thought was to chuck it into the trees. But someone might find it there, and it would easily be traced back to his unit. If he was going to dispose of it, he would have to find a much better place.
Maybe there was still a way to use it to discredit the commandos. Perhaps an idea would occur to him. He tucked it into his belt and began walking back to the crest of the hill.
Lai would have been fully within his rights as captain to execute both men. If anything, it was his decision to show the men mercy that might be questioned. They had not only disobeyed his orders for conducting the search, but disobeyed general orders in possessing the phone—a much graver matter.
He was fairly certain that neither man would speak of the incident, but if they did, Lai might get the reputation of being a “soft” commander, and one who did not care whether his orders were followed or not.
Being a drunk was not necessarily something that would bar one’s promotion; being soft was.
He hated the army.
~ * ~
Josh had been sitting on the rock for nearly an hour when he heard the soldier making his way up through the jungle toward him. His first thought was that he had been surrounded, and that the man below was trying to flush him out. Then he realized that was unlikely. Whoever he was hearing was moving slowly, not walking directly toward him but following the channel the water had made.
Josh slipped off the rock and moved to a nearby cluster of chest-high bushes, ducking behind them.
The soldier’s head appeared above the rocks. He climbed up onto the rock where Josh had been sitting, then leaned back, resting.
Josh sprang forward. He started to bring the rifle up to use as a club, but the man began turning in his direction.
Josh lowered the rifle and slid his finger into the trigger.
He saw the surprise on the man’s face, then the little geysers of dust rising from the rock next to the soldier, then from the soldier himself.
Gray dust from the rock. Red from the soldier.
The man looked up into his face and started to say something, his chubby lips opening into a question. Then he fell back into the dried streambed.
Josh ran to him, and stared down at his face. There was no expression on it now, just a kind of numb emptiness, the eyes staring without comprehension.
The man had had a satellite phone in his hand. As he picked it up, Josh realized it was an AsiaSat2 unit, the same type that the expedition had used.
Josh’s anger erupted. He went back to the body and stomped on the dead man’s face with his heel, fury unleashed in a violent surge that left him physically drained after only a few seconds. Still he kept stomping, kicking the man for what seemed like hours.
When he stopped, he didn’t feel any pleasure; he felt no satisfaction or even justification. He felt only trembling exhaustion.
The gunshot would have been heard for several miles, and others would be reacting. He wasn’t going to be lucky like he had been before. This man had an insignia—he was an officer. People would care about him. They would look for him, and want revenge.
Josh had to get out of here—now.
He bent down to see if the man had anything useful. There was a pistol on his belt, and a canteen—Josh jerked the canteen free and drained about a quarter of it in a single gulp. Coughing, he stopped and caught his breath, then took another drink, slower, more measured— the water had a metal taste, though not nearly bad enough to make him spit it out.
Capping the steel bottle, he stood silently for a moment, listening.
There was nothing. It was as if he and the Chinese soldier had been the only two people in the world, and now it was just him.
A dangerous illusion. They would be running to see what the shots were. He had to get as far away from here as he could. Then he could use the phone to call for help.
Josh put the water bottle in his left pocket, then hiked his jeans and tucked the pistol into the front of his waistband. Glancing at his battered boots, he started climbing back over the ridge, rifle ready.
~ * ~
7
Bangkok
Peter Lucas leaned back in the chair, reaching for his bottle of water as the Air Force intelligence officer began reviewing the satellite data on the Chinese attack for the rest of the participants in the videoconference. Lucas had seen most of this intelligence an hour ago. Gathered from a pair of electronic “ferret” or signal eavesdropping satellites that had been moved into the area, the data indicated a huge jump in traffic on bands associated with a cross section of the Chinese military. In layman’s terms: the Chinese were str
eaming over the border like lava from a volcano.
An admiral from PACOM spoke next, saying that the Navy had no ships closer than a full day’s sail from the coast of Vietnam, and it would take several days to get anything bigger than a destroyer there. A P-3 Orion had been scrambled to cover the coast, looking for Chinese submarines, but at the moment that was the extent of the Navy’s effort in the area. If American citizens were going to be evacuated from Vietnam—
“My God, we don’t want photos like that,” blurted Harold Park. As the CIAs director of operations or DDO, he was the number two man in the agency. He was a good DDO, and an even better agency politician.
