by Larry Bond
Mara remained dazed on the ground. The gunfire continued in the distance. Josh got to his feet and went to her.
“We have to keep moving,” he said. “Come on.”
“What the hell?” Her voice was a mumble, far away. “My bag? Where’s my bag?”
“It got blown up,” he said.
“God, my back hurts.”
“You’ll be all right. You’re not even bleeding.”
“Yeah.”
Josh took the gun from Mạ’s hand.
“If you could walk, it would be really good,” he told Mara. “I don’t think I can carry you anymore.”
“Walk,” she repeated as he helped her to her feet.
Mara was shaky, but she kept her balance as they started down the stream. Josh took the rear, figuring that was where the threat would come from.
“Where are we going?” asked Mara.
“We’re just going,” said Josh. “Keep moving. Go!”
~ * ~
2
Northwestern Vietnam
The tracers flying out from the edge of the jungle told Jing Yo several things, the most important of which was that they were not fighting Vietnamese soldiers, or at least not regular soldiers. The gunfire was much more carefully aimed and coordinated, the shots purposeful even when they missed. The tracers weren’t being used to help the soldiers aim; rather, the rounds told the gunner he was nearing the end of his box. As he stopped to reload, another took up the fire, so that there was never a break in the gunfire that could be exploited.
The sound of the weapons was also telling—it was tinnier than an AK-47’s. Yet it was deeper than the slish-slish a SCAR would make—an indication, Jing Yo thought, that these men were not Americans.
Perhaps not, though they had at least one thing in common with the American SEALs Jing Yo had briefly trained with at the start of his career—they were turning an incredibly minute tactical advantage into a commanding position. They had the road completely covered, yet Jing Yo believed they had no more than six men, and most likely only four. They even used the destruction of their vehicles to their advantage, using the covering smoke to launch brief feints to stall a counterattack.
The helicopter gunships were impotent. The enemy force was so close to Jing Yo’s men that they couldn’t fire their rockets without either exposing themselves to more grenade fire or risking a miss that would kill their own troops.
“Couple of grenades there and we can push whoever’s holding that spot back,” said Sergeant Wu, crouching near Jing Yo. He pointed left to the north side of the road, where a slight rise gave the enemy just enough of a vantage to keep the commandos in place. “We can gang up on them. Sweep around once we’re on that side of the road and beyond their trucks.”
“Hmmm.”
The gunfire continued, controlled bursts plowing through the jungle anytime Jing Yo’s men tried to move.
“We get that side, we can roll them up,” said Wu, elaborating on his plan. “We push them back from the road. Helicopters can come in and pick up the wounded from the crash.”
Jing Yo didn’t answer.
“You want to wait until the reinforcements get here?” Wu asked. Soldiers from the unit that had been at the farm had landed up the road and were marching up the road. “They’ll be here in five minutes. That’ll work, too.”
“Why do you think the enemy is still firing?” Jing Yo asked his sergeant.
“What do you mean?”
“If we were holding that position, we would have moved back by now. We would try to get away before our enemy could bring in many reinforcements. We would expect reinforcements.”
“Maybe they don’t. Or maybe they’re stupid.”
“They’re not stupid.” Jing Yo shifted his rifle. “They are covering a retreat.”
“All right. But we can’t deal with that until we deal with them.”
“Yes.”
The soldiers must have gotten the scientist; it was the only reason they could be here.
Which way was he going? Directly behind them? Or somewhere else?
There was no way to know. The safest line of retreat would be behind the defenses. Jing Yo would have to try that way first.
The enemy would naturally expect the attack the sergeant had suggested, since they would know or at least suspect that was the direction the reinforcements would come from. He would therefore pretend to launch the assault there, but instead come up from the other side, the southwestern corner, across the road. The defenders would either retreat immediately, or be caught in place as the reinforcements arrived.
“I will take Ai Gua and Private Kim with me,” Jing Yo told Wu, outlining his plan. “We will circle around and launch an attack from the southeast, behind the position at that point in the road.”
“The jungle is pretty thick there.”
“Yes, they may be counting on that. You will launch your grenades at the northern point, and make them think we are concentrating on them there.”
Sergeant Wu nodded.
“Take the radio from Ai Gua. Have the helicopters take some of the regular troops to the farming area beyond the jungle,” Jing Yo told Wu. “And tell them to continue patrolling above. Give us ten minutes to get into position, then launch your attack.”
As Jing Yo leaped up, a fresh fusillade of bullets crashed into the jungle near him, forcing him to dive headfirst into the brush to his right. He crawled nearly ten meters on his belly before rising again, running in a crouch as he started to arc into position.
Ai Gua and Kim, meanwhile, withdrew from their spots near the shoulder of the road. They met Jing Yo about fifteen meters from the curve just opposite the enemy’s southernmost position. They moved another fifty meters farther west, crossing the road near a stream culvert.
Jing Yo slid down into the crevice cut by the stream. The streambed formed an easy path southward, keeping the brush at bay. He trotted down it for twenty meters, then went up the embankment, leading his men into the jungle at a slow but steady pace. They could hear the enemy gunner firing his rounds, but the vegetation was so thick they couldn’t see him.
Both men were on his left, Ai Gua a few yards away, Kim closer to the road. Jing Yo signaled to them to stay put, then began slipping forward through the brush, moving as quietly as he could. Stealth was an animal virtue; he imagined himself a tiger, passing through the stalks and branches with less sound than a raindrop slipping between the leaves of a tree.
The gunfire was very close.
A dark shadow shifted on his left, moving ever so slightly.
The enemy, twelve yards away, temporarily protected by a tree.
Wu’s grenades exploded to the north near the road. The gunfire stoked into a thunderstorm.
Jing Yo waited for the shadow he was watching to move. He didn’t, nor did he fire.
Very disciplined.
Sergeant Wu’s attack continued with a fresh round of grenades. Jing Yo heard the man near him say something, undoubtedly speaking into a radio, and start to move to his right.
Jing Yo raised his rifle, then fired a three-shot burst into the middle of the moving green blur. It didn’t stop.
Bulletproof vest.
Jing Yo adjusted his aim lower, but there was so much vegetation and debris that he couldn’t be sure of what he was aiming at. The soldier crashed farther into the jungle, moving eastward.
The others were, too. Jing Yo got up to start after them, then realized the danger.
“Down!” he yelled as loud as he could, hoping his voice would reach not just Ai Gua and Kim but Wu and the others. “Down!”
His warning was cut off by a tremendous explosion. The enemy had planted an IED or improvised explosive device at the edge of their position, exploding it to cover their trail.
“Come on!” he yelled to Ai Gua and Kim. “They’re running away!”
~ * ~
3
En route to Thailand
Only a few airports in the world could
handle the U.S. Air Force’s RT-1, the official designation of the hypersonic transport. None of them were in Vietnam.
The airport at Bangkok in Thailand had a long enough runway and was relatively close to Vietnam, but was known to be under surveillance by Chinese agents. So was the airport at U-Tapao, the Thailand naval air base that doubled as a sparsely used international airport. But U-Tapao’s regular military use made it a little easier to camouflage the ultimate destination of the plane’s passengers, and so it was chosen as the RT-1’s destination.
Zeus Murphy had never been aboard the hypersonic aircraft. Though the outer hull of the plane was large—lengthwise, it rivaled stretched versions of the 747—the interior cabin was about the size of a corporate jet. It was nowhere near as luxurious. While the Air Force used the RT, as everyone called it, exclusively as a VIP transport, Congress had severely limited the amount of money that could be used for the aircraft’s amenities. That meant the cabin looked a lot like what would be found in the first-class section of a circa-2000 Boeing 777. Not bad by any means, but not ultrafancy.
The stewards, all male, left something to be desired, but that was another story.
The flight itself was so quick—just over two hours—that Zeus hardly had time to finish his PowerPoint presentation for the Vietnamese. The general’s translator, a Vietnamese national on contract to the Defense Department, worked on a translation page by page on a piece of paper next to him as they flew. He hadn’t even had a chance to type it into the computer when the steward came back and said they were landing.
“The captain requests that you buckle your seat belts,” said the steward. “General? I’m afraid your seat has to be upright for the landing.”
“Yes, thank you, Sergeant,” said Perry, fixing his seat.
While the RT could fly at roughly ten times the speed of sound, the flight was extremely smooth, without the nosebleed, gut-punching acceleration of a fighter, let alone a spacecraft. For the passengers, taking off felt no different from what they’d experience in a Boeing Dreamliner, and the acceleration was gradual. On most flights, the same might be said of landing. In this case, however, with time at a premium—and no concerns about a sonic boom over the ocean—the landing was relatively abrupt. Zeus felt himself straining against his seat belt as the plane began to drop. The strain continued, increasing as the plane lowered itself toward the runway.
Even so, landing seemed to take forever. The RT lacked windows, so Zeus had no way of knowing how close to the ground they actually were. The noise of the engines continued to increase; inertia kept pushing him against the seat belt. Zeus felt as if he were stuck in a bizarre amusement park ride that would never end.
Finally the plane jerked up, then back down, the tires screeching. Despite huge shock absorbers that dampened the impact, the vibration could be felt throughout the entire craft as it slowed to a stop on the tarmac.
Zeus undid his belt and picked up his briefcase, waiting for General Perry to lead the way out of the cabin. Win Christian studiously avoided his gaze—just fine by Zeus.
General Perry paused in front of the door as the steward cracked it open.
“Smile, you’re on Candid Camera,” said the general, jokingly reminding them that Chinese spies were probably watching. Then Perry stepped quickly out of the plane, practically running down the moving stairway that had been rolled out to meet them. Christian did the same, springing down the steps as if he were jogging toward a reception.
Zeus had never been to Thailand before—in fact, his only tour in Asia had been a very brief temporary duty in South Korea—and he decided that he was going to take his time, savoring the moment and absorbing as much of the scene as possible.
The first thing he absorbed was the tremendous heat. Everyone said that Southeast Asia was warm and muggy; everyone was right. Zeus felt as if his clothes—he was in his Class A, look-your-best-because-you’re-meeting-the-top-brass, dress uniform—absorbed a gallon of water in his first step off the plane.
They’d been directed to a relatively secluded area of the airport, not so much to avoid prying eyes as to stay away from the simply curious. The RT sat at the center of a large expanse of concrete. The nearest buildings were a pair of hangars about a hundred yards away. A U.S. Navy Orion electronic intelligence-gathering, or ELINT, aircraft was being refueled in front of one of them, guarded by several sailors. A small civilian airliner was rolling on a ramp beyond the hangars, passing rows of warehouses and a fenced-off area used for ammunition storage by the Thai Navy.
A pair of large Korean Hyundai sedans stood with their doors open about twenty yards from the aircraft. Flanked by a handful of marines and sandwiched between two Hummers, the limos had their doors open, waiting for the general and his party.
Zeus got into the second car, sitting with the general’s administrative assistant, a prim but extremely efficient middle-aged woman with the unfortunate nickname of Candy.
If “Candy” fit any woman in the world, it was surely not this one. For Zeus, the name evoked images of a gum-cracking, lipstick-smearing woman whose clothes were always a size too tight. This Candy wore a skirt that came to her calves and glasses so thickly framed that even a librarian would have found them unfashionable.
Staying on her good side was highly advisable, since practically everything the general did went through her or Christian. And cultivating Christian was not an option.
“Hot, huh?” said Zeus as the doors were closed.
“I expected worse.”
“So, how long have you worked for the general?”
Candy turned and gave him a look that implied he had just asked a question requiring code-word clearance.
“A while, huh?” he said when she didn’t answer.
“A while.”
“Good boss?”
“My boss is the U.S. taxpayer.”
“Good answer,” offered Zeus, ending his stab at making conversation. Not even Rosen could have charmed this battle-ax.
The procession drove a few hundred yards down the concrete, passing behind an empty military bus before stopping in front of a Thai Navy helicopter. Zeus got out and followed the others into the helicopter. The chopper took off before he even got seated, rising quickly and turning hard.
“Wow,” said Zeus as he bumped against Christian, who was seated next to him. Though it was used as a VIP transport, the accommodations on the chopper were cramped and basic. The seat cushion had less foam in it than a cheap throwaway sunshade.
“Antiterrorist tactic, Major,” said Perry, who was sitting in front of him. “We’re in a war zone. Have to get used to that.”
“Yes, sir.”
The base didn’t look as if it was ramping up for war, particularly. A number of warships—patrol craft sized, mostly—sat tied up at their docks, all nestled together: an easy target for an enemy. And the traffic on the field looked no heavier than what one might see at a base in Alaska on a Sunday afternoon in July.
The port-area industries gave way to jungle as they moved inland. Suddenly the helo tipped hard to the right. The trees seemed to part, and a large green field appeared. They put down quickly, then scrambled out the door to another waiting chopper, this one a Sikorsky with no markings. In seconds they were airborne, and rushing to the northeast.
Their destination was Korat, a Thai air force base where a Korean Airlines jet waited on the tarmac for them. The jet was an actual Korean Airlines plane, leased by the U.S. so the arrival in Vietnam would be low-key. The pilots were U.S. Air Force captains, and shortly after takeoff they called General Perry into the cockpit to brief him on their flight plan.
Perry had Christian and Zeus go up with him. The cockpit was cramped, tighter than Zeus had imagined it would be—it was the first time he’d ever been in a cockpit of anything other than a C-130 or a helicopter.
Originally, they had planned to land in Da Nang—the old U.S. Marine base was now a Vietnamese airport—since it was one of the few airports in the count
ry that had not been damaged by Chinese bombing. But the Vietnamese had done some emergency repairs to the Hanoi airport, and had passed the word that they preferred the delegation to land there.
“That’s where we’re landing then,” said Perry.
“It’s still very vulnerable to a Chinese attack,” said Christian. “And it’s got to be in their crosshairs.”
“We’re not going to score any points by landing in Da Nang,” said Perry. “And we’re going to need all the points we can get. We’re here to help them, but make no mistake, gentlemen: from their point of view, we’re the ones who aren’t to be trusted.”
