Shadows of War - [Red Dragon Rising 01]

by Larry Bond

  “We stop here,” said Mara when they finally broke into a small clearing around three large intertwined trees. “Rest.”

  “We have to keep moving,” said Josh. “They’re probably following.”

  “We stop and figure out where the hell we are,” she told him. “And we need to rest.”

  Josh looked down at Mạ. She had a vacant expression on her face, a desperate blankness.

  “You’re right. We should stop,” he said.

  He crouched next to Mạ and gestured that she should sit. He sat down against the nearby tree, patting the ground next to him, but Mạ remained standing.

  Mara leaned against the tree, looking upward. “I think I can climb this,” she said.

  “I thought you were tired.”

  She frowned but then started upward, slowly at first but gradually gaining speed.

  Josh recognized her type—college jock, probably played soccer, a tomboy who felt like a fish out of water once graduation came around. She’d probably looked into joining the army, then settled on the spy business. Maybe she was gay. Most likely.

  Not that it was an issue. He wasn’t attracted to her in any event.

  He looked at the bushes, examining the leaves. If it had been a different time of year, they’d be full of berries and there’d be nuts on the trees—they’d have something to eat.

  “There’s a hill about a half mile that way,” Mara told him as she slid back down to the ground. “There are a lot of trees. The ground should be a little easier to move through.”

  “Are they following us?”

  “I couldn’t see them. Doesn’t mean they’re not.”

  “Do you have your phone?”

  “That’s about all I have.”

  “Are you going to call for help?” Josh asked.

  “The only help we’re likely to get was shooting it out with the Chinese back at the road,” said Mara. “And if they were homing in on you, they may be able to home in on me. Come on—if they’re following us, it will be easy for them to see the trail we cut through the brush.”

  “We didn’t cut a trail.”

  “The vegetation was pushed to the side. Look—it’s pretty easy to see the way we’ve gone.”

  She was right. Josh got up and took Mạ by the hand, following as Mara led the way to the hill she’d seen. For a while, the brush was just as thick as before, maybe even thicker. But after nearly twenty minutes they began moving uphill. As the incline steepened, the vegetation began to thin out.

  The summit was an uneven saddle framed by a group of young trees. The land to the south had been clear-cut of timber within the past two or three years; rotted carcasses of trees that had been taken down but not harvested dotted the new growth. A rutted logging trail meandered off to the southeast.

  Mara climbed another of the trees to try and scout the area, but the thin trunk bent before she was high enough to get much of a view.

  “All right. I’ll check in,” Mara told Josh after she shimmied down. She took out her phone and walked a few yards away.

  Josh debated whether to follow her, and decided he should. She frowned but said nothing to him as the call went through.

  “Yeah, it’s me. A whole shitload of trouble,” she told whoever was on the other side of the line. “The Chinese had helicopters. Jimmy’s people got mixed up in the firelight. We split up. I have the scientist. He’s got a kid with him. What can you do for us?”

  Josh folded his arms in front of his chest. He didn’t like the way she’d mentioned Mạ, as if he’d been expected to make a business presentation and had shown up with a kid in tow.

  Mara turned to him, apparently in response to a question from whoever was on the line.

  “You do have the tape, right?” she asked.

  “I got it.”

  “We’re good,” she told the phone.

  She listened some more.

  “All right,” she said finally. “We’ll try.”

  “What are we going to try?” asked Josh after she hung up abruptly.

  “To stay alive. Come on. That trail leads to a road, and there’s a deserted village a mile off it that the Chinese haven’t occupied yet.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I just had them look at a satellite image. Come on.”

  ~ * ~

  5

  Washington, D.C.

  President Greene glanced across the Oval Office at a portrait of one of his predecessors before taking the call. He’d ordered the painting of FDR placed where he could see it a few months before. Never a big Roosevelt admirer, he’d come to appreciate the Democrat more and more over the past year.

  “Mrs. Prime Minister, thank you for returning my call,” President Greene told Ivory Chatham as he retrieved the British prime minister from hold. “I trust you’re well.”

  “Tolerably well,” she told him. “The weather here has been just awful. Even for England.”

  “I’m sorry to hear.” Mandatory chitchat finished, Greene plunged into the reason he’d placed the call. “I’ve been speaking to both my secretary of state and my national security adviser about your concerns.”

  “I’m going to save you the embarrassment, George,” said the prime minister, cutting him short. “His Majesty’s government is not currently in a position to help you on the resolution.”

  Greene stifled a growl. “Why not?”

  “I’m sorry, George. The financial situation is very difficult here.”

  “You’re not going to succumb to blackmail, are you? This is a critical point. Crucial.”

  “I know. The financial situation is very precarious right now,” added Chatham. “And I’m afraid that my government would not be able to sustain a challenge.”

  “I hadn’t realized the situation was so . . . precarious.” Greene shifted in his chair. Part of the problem, he believed, was that Chatham faced a no-confidence vote in the Parliament in a few days. She had barely survived the last, and undoubtedly didn’t want to do anything to tip more votes against her.

  “It’s the bonds, George. The Chinese have been very clear that they will withdraw their deposits.”

  “They’ve hinted the same to us. It will hurt them more than us. Certainly in the long run.”

  “You’re not in the position I am. And frankly, the Chinese have public sentiment on their side. People think the Vietnamese are getting what they deserve. I’m surprised that’s not the case in your country.”

  It probably was, though Greene had made it a point to avoid looking at any public opinion polls on the matter.

  “People have seen the photos the Chinese have spread around,” added the prime minister. “I know what you’ve said about them, but they’re very convincing. Very, very convincing.”

  “What if we had proof that the Chinese staged the entire incident? That the Vietnamese never launched an attack.”

  “Of course we suspect that.”

  “But if the public had proof. Would it make a difference to you?”

  “Well, if we had public opinion on our side, in that case…”

  “Then let me ask you a favor. Do nothing. For a few days—take no stand on the resolution.”

  “You have proof?”

  “We’re working on it,” said Greene.

  ~ * ~

  6

  Northwestern Vietnam

  Jing Yo had been following the enemy soldiers for nearly ten minutes before he spotted the blood. It was a bright splotch on a long blade of grass. He stopped and crouched, wondering if the enemy had managed to set another ambush nearby. When he saw nothing, he moved forward again, staying as low to the ground as he could.

  More blood. A big splotch and a little one.

  Two more steps and there were three drops, all very large.

  The brush got thicker. More branches were broken as they passed, the enemy’s haste making its path easier to follow.

  It might be a trap. They’d been very clever so far.

  Jing Yo
moved ahead carefully, his eyes straining to see through the brush. There was a shadow ahead.

  Stealthily, he crept toward it. It wasn’t until he was three meters away that he was sure it was just a tree.

  A few steps beyond the shadow, the scattered splotches of blood became a steady line, thin and narrow, then wider. After a few strides, Jing Yo heard a groan ahead.

  He strongly suspected a trap. He circled to his right, moving quietly through a group of trees. The enemy soldier had fallen against a bush and was leaning there, half suspended, facedown.

  But he was still alive. His hand was clawing at the ground, as if he were a turtle trying to right itself.

  Jing Yo sprang forward, rushing toward the man. The enemy soldier had dropped his rifle on the ground.

  The gun was Chinese. He wore Chinese uniform pants and top under a bulletproof vest and a regular-issue camo tac vest.

  Was he Chinese? What was going on?

  Jing Yo reached him just as the soldier managed to push himself faceup.

  He looked Chinese.

  “Who are you?” demanded Jing Yo, grabbing him by the shirt and pulling him. “Comrade, what unit are you?”

  The man grimaced, clearly in pain. His eyes opened and closed. He was barely conscious.

  Jing Yo squatted down. The bulletproof vest was not Chinese; it was cut higher and was thinner. The inserts seemed to be made of a thousand spheres rather than the stiff plates used by the Chinese and most other militaries.

  His radio was foreign as well. He had German-made field glasses, unusual in Asia.

  Jing Yo’s bullets had caught him in the thigh and groin, tearing apart the flesh. Not serious at first, the wound had been made much worse by the soldier’s exertions running through the jungle. Blood was now oozing out onto his uniform at a steady pace.

  “Who are you?” Jing Yo asked again.

  The man groaned.

  “Tell me your name. What unit are you with? Or are you with the Vietnamese? Tên anh là gì?” he added, switching to Vietnamese as he asked him his name again.

  The man didn’t respond.

  “You’re American?” Jing Yo asked. “Are you CIA?”

  No answer.

  “Where is the scientist?”

  The man yelled in anguish. Jing Yo reached to his vest and took out his morphine injector. He removed the cap, then plunged the needle into the man’s leg.

  “Lieutenant, what’s this?” asked Ai Gua, plunging out of the brush.

  “Our enemy is wearing our uniform.”

  Sergeant Wu and three other commandos came up behind Ai Gua. Though the explosion had been fearsome, the IED had wounded only two men, both lightly. Wu had left two of his soldiers to care for them.

  “Are they Vietnamese?” asked Wu, looking at the man.

  “I don’t think so, but it’s possible,” said Jing Yo. Years of intrigue had taught him not to rule out any possibility; though remote, there was even a chance the man was actually Chinese.

  “They must have gotten the uniforms from whoever they stole the trucks from,” said Wu.

  “Yes,” said Jing Yo. “We’ll continue to pursue them. The best odds are that the scientist is with them, or behind them somewhere.”

  “If they reach the road they’ll be gone,” said Wu.

  “The helicopters will continue to patrol the area,” said Jing Yo. “It’s the best we can do.”

  Ai Gua had dressed the man’s wounds and checked him for identification. He had none, not even a wallet. But he did have money—nearly a hundred Vietnamese five-hundred-thousand-dong notes were wadded in his pants.

  Not a bad amount of cash for a soldier wearing a private’s uniform.

  “Who are you?” Jing Yo asked the man.

  The man began to babble. If he was speaking coherently, it wasn’t in a language Jing Yo recognized.

  “Stay with him,” Jing Yo told Ai Gua. “We’ll go after the others. Kim, you’re with me.”

  As Jing Yo started back through the jungle, he tried to visualize where the various forces were. The enemy soldiers had retreated eastward; both he and Wu were moving in the same direction and parallel to each other, separated by about a hundred meters. They covered a wide area, but there was still room to lose their enemy. The jungle to Jing Yo’s right was thick, and from the satellite maps was almost impassable farther south. The area where Wu was moving was sparser, and backed into a series of farm fields about a kilometer away. Jing Yo had sent troops there before heading to the area of the mine shaft; they should be in place by now, though they had yet to report any contact.

  The jungle pitched upward abruptly at a set of rocks that swung in a diagonal to the north. Jing Yo stopped, examining the ridge carefully. It was a perfect ambush point, with a good line of sight to the north.

  Just as he started moving to his right, a gunshot cracked through the jungle. He raced forward, throwing himself against the rocks as the gunfire suddenly thickened.

  It took him a few seconds to realize that the firefight was at least a hundred meters away. Wu and his men must be under fire.

  Jing Yo told Kim to move left, sending the private sweeping around his flank. Then he climbed up the rocks, digging his fingers into the thick moss and hauling himself through the bushes at the top. He rose and started to trot, jogging forward as the gunfire continued. When he had run nearly a hundred meters, he saw something running to his right. He raised his rifle and fired off a burst, then threw himself down. The answering fire came from two distinct directions, right in front of him and to his right.

  The one on the right began to run through the jungle.

  The enemy had split up. Most likely the man running was with the scientist.

  Assuming the scientist was with them at all.

  Jing Yo took a few steps back, then started moving to his right. There was a loud pop, and something flew through the trees.

  “Grenade!” he yelled, throwing himself down.

  The grenade soared over his head and exploded. Jing Yo started moving again, tamping down the impulse to run. He picked his way through the bushes, trying to stay low.

  Something green moved through the trees about fifty meters ahead. Jing Yo went down to his knee and fired two bursts.

  There was a scream.

  Jing Yo leapt to his feet and ran. There was no need for stealth now, no sense in trying to blend into the jungle. It was a race—he had to get to the man before he recovered enough to shoot back.

  He saw him lying on the ground, writhing in pain, half groaning, half screaming. He was dressed in black fatigues—no Chinese uniform.

  Something about his agony touched Jing Yo, provoking sympathy. He stopped, suddenly filled with compassion.

  The man rolled over onto his back. He had a weapon—an FN 40 mm grenade launcher.

  Jing Yo leapt to his right as the grenade fired. The projectile passed so close that he felt the wind rushing past, the breath of a dragon provoked from its lair.

  He hit the ground hard, rolling as the grenade exploded in the trees some eighty meters away. Jing Yo got to his feet and, before he took a full breath, killed the man who had tried to kill him, crushing his windpipe with the heel of his foot.

  The monks had taught him this lesson long ago—save your compassion for the appropriate moment. In battle, it is weakness.

  The dead man had no ID, but like the other man, he had a considerable bankroll of Vietnamese money. He was out of bullets and had no more grenades. His face, big and gruff looking, seemed European; in any event, he was clearly not a Chinese or Vietnamese native.

  Was he the scientist?

  He was dressed like a warrior, with combat boots. He looked nothing like the man Jing Yo had seen the first night, or what Jing Yo imagined a scientist would look like, it was much more likely that he was one of the rescuers.

  The stutter of automatic weapons interrupted his thoughts. Jing Yo put a fresh magazine in his gun, gazing back to his left. He waited, watching for movemen
t, but there was none. Finally the gunfire stopped.