Shadows of War

1

The sneeze rushed him out of the dream, squeezing away the black shadows he’d been running through. It didn’t quite wake Josh MacArthur up, however — the second sneeze did that, shaking his body so violently that he knocked over the small radio near his sleeping bag. He rolled over and slipped to the edge of the mattress before the third sneeze, trying to bury his face in his arm to muffle the noise. This was only partly successful, and Josh, worried that he would wake the rest of the team, grabbed the cover of his sleeping bag and stifled the next sneeze, and the next.

When he was finally able to take a good breath without sneezing, Josh rose to his knees and crawled to the side of the tent, looking for the small plastic box with his antihistamines. After a bit of patting around he found it, but it was too dark inside the tent to sort through the pills — he carried two types, of similar sizes but different strengths. He wanted the one more powerful at nighttime, not caring that it would make him drowsy.

His flashlight had rolled away somewhere when he knocked over the radio, and he couldn’t see it. Finally he decided to go outside and walk to the clearing, where the moonlight might be strong enough for him to tell the difference between the blue and green pills; it would also give him a chance to relieve himself. He grabbed his jeans from the edge of the cot and pulled them on. Remembering the snakes he’d seen during the day, he shook out his boots before putting them on, then took his sweatshirt from the base of his camp bed and went outside.

The moist mountain air provoked another sneeze.

Josh cursed his sinuses silently and walked over to the open area where they’d made a fire the previous evening. It was reduced to dead ashes now, but there was enough open space for the moon to shine full; he could see not only his hands but the cuts across his palm. He opened the pillbox and sorted through its contents, worried he would sneeze again and spill them in the dirt, where they might be lost forever. Finally he found one he was convinced was green — one of the strong ones — and popped it into his mouth.

He swallowed, grimacing at the bitter taste the pill left in his throat. Then he moved toward the bushes and trees a few yards away to find a place to pee.

Northwestern Vietnam was not the best place for a man with allergies, but MacArthur hadn’t considered his body’s foibles when he decided on his career as a weather scientist, nor had he thought about it much when he chose his doctoral thesis topic, the impact of rapid climate change on Asian mammals. Vietnam was not only a good place to study his subject; there was actually money available to fund the research, since few scientists wanted to go to such a distant place when there were ample topics in the developed world. These days, one could study the effects of climate change and still sleep in a hotel bed at night.

But Vietnam, snakes and all, offered other consolations. The mountains and valleys of the north were breathtakingly spectacular. And while they had been greatly affected by the rapid changes in the world’s weather that had occurred over the last five years, the changes were much more benign, and even beneficial, than those elsewhere.

One of the changes meant it was slightly wetter and warmer in February than it ordinarily would have been just five years before. But warmth was relative — MacArthur pulled on his sweatshirt and rubbed his hands together, trying to ward off the chill as he looked for a suitable place to relieve himself.

The young scientist had just found a large rock when he heard something pushing through the scrub to his right. He froze with fear.

A tiger!

Ordinarily they didn’t range quite this far west, but they too had suffered the consequences of climate change, and were expanding their range.

What was he supposed to do? Crouch? Freeze? Run? What had he been told during orientation?

Before his mind could supply an answer, he heard another sound, this one farther away There were two, no three animals moving through the brush.

A fourth.

They couldn’t be tigers. The cats didn’t hunt in packs.

But this realization didn’t comfort him. Something was definitely there, moving through the vegetation toward the camp.

Thieves?

Someone shouted. MacArthur spoke very rudimentary Vietnamese, and what he heard didn’t match with the words he knew.

There was another shout, and then a very loud and strange popping noise, a bang that seemed unworldly. The whole mountain shuddered, then flashed oddly white.

Then came a noise he did recognize, one he’d heard long ago as a child, a sound that had filled his nightmares ever since — an automatic weapon began rattling behind him, its sound the steady, quick stutter of death. Another joined in, then another and another.

Without thinking, without even looking where he was going, Josh MacArthur took off running in the opposite direction, dodging through the thick brush in the moonlight.

2

Lieutenant Jing Yo stiffened as Colonel Sun Li strode up the hill.

“What happened here, Lieutenant?” said the colonel.

“The intelligence was not good. There were Vietnamese soldiers in the camp. The regular troops panicked and began to fire. We came up from the road as soon as we heard the gunfire. By then, of course, it was too late.”

“They killed them?”

“Yes,” said Jing Yo. “As best I can determine, there were only two Vietnamese soldiers in the camp. The rest were unarmed. It appeared to be a scientific expedition.”

“Science?”

“There are different instruments. It was a UN team.”

Sun frowned. Killing Vietnamese was one thing; murdering international scientists, quite another.

“An expedition?” The colonel’s expression changed as he considered this. “So they were spies.”

Jing Yo shook his head. “Their equipment — ”

“They were spies, Lieutenant. If the matter should ever be raised later on. Something that is very unlikely. In the meantime, we still have operational secrecy. That was maintained, for better or worse.”

Jing Yo knew better than to disagree. Colonel Sun was Jing Yo’s superior as head of the commando regiment. More important as far as the present operation was concerned, he was the executive officer to General Ho Ling, the commander of Group Task Force 1, and thus the second-in-command of the army at the spearhead of the campaign to subdue Vietnam. Though still in his early thirties, Sun was as politically connected as any general in the army, as his position with the commandos demonstrated: he was the nephew of Premier Cho Lai — the favorite nephew, by all accounts.

Still, Jing Yo was not a toady or yes-man; Sun would not have had him as a platoon leader and personal confidant if he was.

“I sense from your silence that you disapprove,” said Sun when Jing Yo didn’t answer. “You consider this attack a sign of poor discipline.”

“It does not signify achievement.”

Sun laughed. “Well said, my understated monk.” The colonel practically bellowed. “Well said. But what do we expect of these ignorant peasants? We’ve worn out our tongues on this.”

Sun had, in fact, argued against using regular troops rather than commandos for the secret border mission before the invasion. But General Ho had countered that the tasks could be conducted by regular troops with some guidance. The argument became moot when the central command decided to allocate only one commando platoon — Jing Yo’s — to the mission. They blamed this on manpower shortages, but in truth the decision had much more to do with army politics: central command wanted to limit the commandos’ influence by limiting their glories.

“We’ll have to wipe these idiots’ noses for them before it’s through,” said Sun. “But Vietnam is not Malaysia, eh? We won’t be fighting the CIA here.”

“No,” said Jing Yo. “But we should not underestimate our enemy.”

One of the regular soldiers rushed up from the side of the hill. It was Sergeant Cho, one of the noncommissioned officers who had presided over the massacre.

“Colonel, Private Bai believes he heard someone running up the hill in that direction,” said Cho.

“Lieutenant, investigate,” said Sun. “We do not need witnesses.”

Jing Yo bowed his head, then turned to Cho. “Which way?”

“I will show you.”

“No, you will tell me. My men and I will deal with it.”

3

Josh felt his chest tighten into a knot, the muscles stretched across his rib cage. He knew better than to give in to the pain — he had to flee, escape whoever was pursuing him. The sound of the bullets slashing through the air, the metal thump that shook both sides of his skull, had turned him into something less than human: an animal, scared; a rabbit or something smaller, a mouse.

He ran and he ran, maybe in circles, pushing through the thick brush without a plan. He pushed through thin stalks of growing trees and wide fern fronds, jostling against thicker trees. The pain in his chest spread inward, gripping his lungs, squeezing until he couldn’t breathe.

And still he ran.

The ground tipped upward, sloping in the direction of the mountains. Somewhere beyond Josh the rain forest gave way to bamboo, the elevation climbing to 2,400 meters. But the jungle still ruled here, and the thick, closely spaced trees would have been a hazard even in full daylight. Josh hit against them repeatedly, bouncing off mostly, pushing to the right or left, until inevitably he fell, his balance and energy drained. He rolled on the jungle floor, the cold, damp earth seeming to climb around him.

His heart pounded furiously. He gulped at the air, desperate to breathe. He tasted the leaves and thick moss deep in his lungs. His eyes watered and his nose was full, but he managed to keep himself from sneezing until he could raise his arm to his mouth and muffle the sound with the inside crook of his elbow. He coughed and wheezed, rising to his haunches. Sweat ran down both temples, and his back was soaked. It felt as if every organ, every blood vessel inside his body, had given way, the liquid surging through his pores.

And then he began to retch.

For Jing Yo, each step was critical. To move through the jungle — to move anywhere — was a matter of balance. The difficulty was to make each move lead to another, to choose a step that would lead inevitably to the step ten paces later. When Jing Yo was moving properly, this was how he stepped; when he went forward with the proper discipline, the hundredth step was preordained.

He had spent years mastering this, learning with his mentors as his practice of self-awareness in the days before his induction into the army.

The trouble was not moving through the dark, but moving with the other men, who knew little of balance, let alone Ch‘an or the Way That Guides All, often known as kung fu outside China. The commandos on his team were elite soldiers, carefully selected and trained to be the country’s best warfighters, but even so, they were not Ch‘an monks nor indoctrinated like them. They walked as soldiers walk, not as ghosts balancing on the edge of the sword.

Jing Yo was the fourth man in the team, the center of a triangle, with Ai Gua at point fifty meters ahead, Sergeant Fan to his left, and Private Po directly behind him. This was not commando doctrine — a spread, single-file line was preferred in this circumstance — but Jing Yo had his own way for many things.

Ai Gua stopped. Jing Yo froze as well, then turned and held out his hands, trying to signal to Po, who didn’t see him until he was only a few meters away; at that point the private fell quickly — and noisily — to his knees.

“Wait,” Jing Yo whispered. “Quietly.”

He slipped forward to Ai Gua. Raised in southwestern China, Ai Gua had hunted from a very young age, and had the judgment of a much older man.

“In that direction,” said Ai Gua, pointing to his right. “Going up the slope.”

“How many?”

“I cannot tell. Just one, maybe. But a noisy one.”

Jing Yo stared at the forest. One man could be more difficult to apprehend than an entire squad.

Sergeant Fan crept close on Jing Yo’s left.

“Where?” Jing Yo asked.

Ai Gua pointed. The sergeant adjusted his night-vision goggles as he scanned the area.

“I see nothing,” he told Jing Yo.

“They are there,” said Ai Gua.

Without even looking at him, Jing Yo knew the sergeant was frowning. In his midthirties, a career soldier from a poor family, Sergeant Fan was a practical man, skeptical by nature.

“Sergeant, take Ai Gua and move in this direction. Private Po and I will go this way and flank our prey.”

“Yes, Lieutenant.”

“Remember, we want them alive.”

“Alive?”

“Until we get information from them, yes.”

Josh steadied himself over the small pool of vomit and mucus. He’d finally caught his breath, but his heart still raced and his whole body shook.

He knew he had to move. He pushed himself upright, then rose unsteadily.

Move! he told himself. Move! You’re not a five-year-old anymore. These aren’t the people who killed your parents. Go! Go!

They weren’t the same people, but they were just as dangerous — different incarnations of the same evil, he thought to himself as he started to move.

The memory of his childhood horror — never fully repressed, never fully confronted — rose from the dark recesses of his consciousness. He tried to ignore it, focusing on the forest before him, feeling the leaves that snapped and slashed at his fingers as he started to move again. He heard a noise behind him, below — he was running upward, he realized for the first time, climbing the mountain.

They were after him.

The boy whose family had been murdered hadn’t panicked, entirely; in the end, he had acted very rationally — and very much like a boy. He had started running out of fear. But then something else took over, something stronger. He began to act as if he were a character in one of the games he often played, Star Wars Battlefront.

He became a clone trooper on Dagobah, dodging through the dense swamp and jungle as he hid from the crazy men who’d come to shoot his family. The cornfield, its stalks bitten to the earth by the harvester, became the large swamp at the center of the battlefield. Old Man’s Rock — the marker at the corner of their field and the neighbors’ — became the landing port for the Federation reinforcements. And the Johnsons’ cow field became the portal he had to escape to.

It was not like the game, exactly; he had no weapon, nor options to alter his character. But the boy became the player, dodging through the field, careful to get away. As long as he was the player, rather than the boy, he could survive. He’d done it before, countless times, playing with his older brother.

And he did it again.

Josh slowed, began to walk rather than run. Running only helped his pursuers — it made him easier to hear. His steps became quieter, more purposeful. His breathing slowed. His eyes, nearly shut until now, opened and let him see as well as any cat.

Gradually, a strategy occurred to him, coalescing around questions that began to form in his mind.

How many are after me?

It couldn’t be many, because they were difficult to hear.

Which direction are they coming from?

The camp, now to his right. Southeast.

Did they see me, or only hear me running through the forest?

It must have been the latter; if they’d seen me, they would have shot immediately.

The questions continued, as did the answers. Josh moved very slowly now, so slowly that at times he felt that he was sleeping standing up.

What do I have with me? A weapon?

Nothing of use. He had the little Flip 5 video camera in his pocket, left there after the evening campfire when he’d amused his colleagues by interviewing them. He had a lighter, Tom’s, which he’d used to light the lantern and failed to give back. He had a guitar pick, from Sarah, a token of good luck she’d slipped into his hand at the airport.

No weapon, no gun.

The noises he’d heard drifted away. But he sensed they were still hunting him, just as long ago the killers had followed. They had wanted to kill him not because he was a witness; their twisted minds didn’t care about that. To them there was no possibility of being caught, let alone punished. They wanted him the way a hungry man wants food. Killing his family had whetted their appetite, and now they were insatiable.

He saw rocks ahead. Slowly, he walked to them.

The outcropping was just at the edge of a slope of bamboo stalks.

Hide in the bamboo?

No. It was too thin — someone with a nightscope could see him.

Move through it. There would be another place to hide somewhere.

Josh began moving to his left. There was something to his right, something moving.

He lowered himself to his haunches slowly, crouching, not even daring to breathe.

Perhaps I’m already dead, he thought. Perhaps these are the last thoughts that will occur to me.

Jing Yo stopped and turned to Private Po, waiting for the rifleman to catch up. While splitting his small team up made tactical sense, it carried an inherent risk. There was no way for the groups to communicate with each other. Like in every other unit in the Chinese army, none of the enlisted men were supplied with radios.

Officially, this was due to equipment shortages. The real reason was to make it more difficult for the enlisted men to organize a mutiny. The fear was well warranted; Jing Yo had heard of two units rebelling against their commander’s orders over the past few months. One of these actions amounted to only a few men who balked at being transferred from the northern provinces where they had been stationed for years. The other was much more serious: two entire companies refused to muster in protest of their failure to get raises. Both cases had been dealt with harshly; the units were broken up, with the ringleaders thrown into reeducation camps.

Their officers suffered more severe punishment: execution by firing squad.

“Our quarry has stopped somewhere,” Jing Yo told Private Po. “See what you can see in that direction there.”

The private raised his rifle and looked through the scope. The electronics in the device were sensitive to heat, and rendered the night in a small circle of green before the private’s eyes. Unfortunately, the thick jungle made it difficult for him to see far.

“Nothing,” whispered Private Po.

Jing Yo became an eagle in his mind’s eye, rising above to view the battlefield. The mountain jutted up sharply ahead; the jungle diminished, leaving vast swaths of bamboo and rock as the only cover. A skilled man trying to escape them would stay in the deep forest.

But was their quarry skilled? There were arguments either way. On the one hand, he had made enough noise for an otherwise incompetent soldier to hear him. On the other, he had left no obvious trail in the thick brush, and was now making no sound that could be heard.

There is no silence but the universe’s silence.

His mentors’ words came back to him. On the surface, the instruction was simple enough: One must learn to listen correctly; hearing was really a matter of tuning one’s ears. But as with much the gray-haired monks said, there was meaning beyond the words.

“Are we in the right place?” asked Private Po.

“Ssshhh,” replied Jing Yo.

His own breath was loud in his ears. He slowed his lungs, leaning forward. The jungle had many sounds — water, somewhere ahead, brush swaying in the wind — a small animal —

Two footsteps, ahead.

Barely ten yards away.

“Your rifle,” Jing Yo said to the private, reaching for it.

Josh tried to hold his breath as he slipped forward. They were very close, close enough for him to have heard a voice.

He stepped around a low rock ledge, edging into a thick fold of brush. He wanted to move faster, but he knew that would only make more noise. Stealth was more important than speed. If he was quiet, they might miss him.

Something shifted nearby. A cough.

They were much closer than he’d thought — ten yards, less, just beyond the clump of trees where he’d paused a moment ago.

Move more quickly, he told himself. But just as quietly.

He took two steps, then panic finally won its battle, and he began to run.

It was not sound but smell that gave their prey away. The smell was odd, light and almost flowerlike, an odd, unusual perfume for the jungle, so strange that Jing Yo thought at first it must be a figment of his imagination.

Then he realized it was the scent of Western soap.

He turned the rifle in the scent’s direction, then heard something moving, stumbling, running.

He rose. A body ran into the left side of the scope, a fleeting shadow.

It would not be useful to kill him, Jing Yo thought. But before he could lower his rifle, a shot rang out.

The bullet flew well above Josh’s head, whizzing through the trees. There was another, and another and another, just as there had been that night when he was a boy.

He’d had many nightmares of that night. His sleeping mind often twisted the details bizarrely, putting him in the present, as a grown man trying to escape, changing the setting — often to the school or even his uncle’s house, where he’d gone to live — and occasionally the outcome: once or twice, his father and mother, both sisters, and his brothers survived.

But Josh knew this wasn’t a dream. These weren’t the two people who’d chased him when he was ten, and he wasn’t able to end this ordeal simply by screaming and opening his eyes. He had to escape. He had to run!

He bolted forward, tripping over the rocks, bouncing against a boulder that came to his waist and then rebounding against a thick tree trunk. Somehow he stayed on his feet, still moving. There were shouts, calls, behind him.

Panic raged through him like a river over a falls. He threw his hands out, as if he might push the jungle away. A tree loomed on his right. He ducked to his left, hit a slimmer tree, kept going. He pushed through a bush that came to his chest.

More bullets.

A stitch deepened in his side. His chest tightened, and he tasted blood in his mouth. The trees thinned again, and he was running over rocks.

Run, his legs told his chest, told his arms, told his brain.

Run!

Sergeant Fan had fired the shot that had sent their quarry racing away. Jing Yo yelled at him, calling him an idiot, but then immediately regretted it. Upbraiding an inferior before others, even one who deserved it as Fan did, was not his way.

“Don’t let him escape,” said Jing Yo, springing after the runner. “But do not kill him either. We want to know what he knows.”

The forest made it hard to run. Jing Yo realized this was a problem for the man they were pursuing as well as for them, and conserved his energy, moving just fast enough to keep up. Ai Gua and Private Po had moved to the flanks; they had good position on the man if he decided to double back.

He wouldn’t. He was panicked, a hare racing from the dragon’s claws.

An odd man, to be able to move so quietly, under such control at one moment, only to panic the next. Jing Yo could understand both control and panic, but not together.

His own failing, perhaps. A limit of imagination.

Sergeant Fan fired again. Jing Yo turned to confront the sergeant. This time there was no reason not to speak freely; on the contrary, the circumstances called for it, as the sergeant had not only been careless but disobeyed his direct order.

“What are you doing?” demanded Jing Yo.

“I had a shot. He’s going — ”

Jing Yo snapped the assault gun from the sergeant’s hand. Stunned, and wheezing from his exertion, Fan raised his hands, as if to surrender.

“Sergeant, when I give an order, I expect it to be followed. We want the man alive. I said that very specifically. When we return to camp, you will gather your things and report to division. Understood?”

Without waiting for an answer, he spun back to the pursuit.

Josh didn’t hear the water until he was almost upon it. His first thought was that he would race through it — the soft sound made him picture a shallow brook coursing down the side of the mountain. Then he thought he would wade down it, throwing the men off his trail.

With his second step, he plunged in above his knee. Josh twisted to the left, but he’d already lost his balance. He spun and landed on his back. Everything was a blur. This was no gentle, babbling brook. Josh fell under the water, bumped back to the surface, then found himself swirling out of control in the current. He flailed wildly, rolling with the water, spinning and alternately sinking and rising up, thrown into a confused maelstrom, gripped by the ice-cold water. He felt dead; no, beyond dead, sent to the frozen waste of some Asian afterlife as a doomed soul forced to endure eternal tortures.

Jing Yo pulled his handheld from his pocket and punched the GPS preset. The stream did not exist on the map, the cartographers not able to keep up with changes wrought by the rapid climate shifts. Snow in these mountains was a rare occurrence as late as 2008, when a one-inch snowfall in February made headlines. Now the mountain averaged nearly a foot and a half in winter, most of it in late January, a product of shifting wind, moisture, and thermal patterns. The snowmelt produced the stream, and Jing Yo supposed that the streambed would be rock dry or at best a trickle within a few weeks.

Right now, though, it was as treacherous as any Jing Yo knew from his native province of Xinjiang Uygur, where such seasonal streams had existed since the beginning of time.

“He fell in,” said Ai Gua. “He is a dead man.”

Between the swift current and the frigid temperature, Ai Gua’s prediction was probably correct. On the other hand, it was just possible that he had made it to the other side.

Jing Yo turned to Sergeant Fan. “Sergeant, take Ai Gua with you and head upstream. See if you can find a good place to cross. Then come back west. Private Po will come with me. This time, do not fire except under my direct order. No one is to fire,” Jing Yo repeated. “No one.”

Jing Yo began walking to the west, paralleling the bank of the stream. The water cut a haphazard channel, at some points swallowing trees, giving them a wide berth at others. It moved downhill, curving into an almost straight line within thirty meters of the spot where they believed their target had gone in.

Jing Yo took the rifle from Private Po, then stepped into the current where he could get a good view downstream. Ignoring the chill that ran up his legs, he moved carefully in the loose stones and mud. Within three steps the water came to his knees. Its pull was strong, trying to push him down; he tilted his entire body against it as he raised the rifle and its sight to see.

The heat of a body should show up clearly if on the surface of the water, but only there. There was considerable brush on both sides of the stream as it continued downward.

Nothing.

Jing Yo nearly lost his footing as he turned to come back out of the water. Only the sense of balance built up by years of practice saved him. He moved silently forward, climbing up the short rise to where Private Po stood.

“Perhaps he is dead already,” said Po as he handed back the rifle. “I hope so.”

“Do not wish for a man’s death, Private.”

“But he’s an enemy.”

There was no difference between wishing a man’s death and wishing one’s own, but there was no way to explain this to the private in terms that he would understand. Telling the enlisted man about Ch ‘an was out of the question; were the wrong official to find out, even such a simple gesture could be misinterpreted as proselytizing to the troops, a crime typically punished by three years of reeducation.

Unless one was a commando. Then he could expect to be made an example of.

They worked their way down fifty meters to a stand of gnarled trees. The vegetation was so thick they couldn’t pass without detouring a good distance to the south, moving in a long semicircle away from their ultimate goal. Finally the terrain and trees cooperated. Jing Yo tuned his ears as they turned back toward the stream, listening to the sounds that fought their way past the sharp hiss of the water. He heard frogs and insects, but nothing large, nothing moving on or near the water, no human sounds.

Perhaps their quarry was a truly clever man, who’d only pretended to panic. Or maybe in his panic he had found the strength to cross the stream. Fear was a most powerful motivator, stronger than hunger or the desire for love and sex.

Western soap. Unlikely for a Vietnamese soldier, who would be paid as poorly as he was fed. So he must be a scientist.

A good prize then.

They returned to the stream at a large, shallow pool. It was longer than it was wide, extending for nearly twenty meters, acting as a reservoir and buffer. This was just the sort of place where a body would wash up.

Jing Yo checked the surface carefully, scanning with the private’s rifle sight. When he didn’t see anything, he headed downstream. The pool grew deeper as he went, until at last the water was at his waist. Once again he used the scope to scan the area; finding nothing, he reluctantly waded back to shore.

He was just handing the rifle back to Private Po when his satellite radio buzzed at his belt.

“Jing Yo,” he said, pushing the talk button.

“Lieutenant, where are you?” demanded Colonel Sun.

Yo pressed the dedicated GPS button, which gave his exact coordinates to Sun’s radio. As a security measure against possible enemy interference, the location of each unit could not be queried; it had to be sent by the user.

“Have you found your man?” asked Sun.

“We’ve tracked him to a stream.”

Jing Yo started to explain the situation, but the colonel cut him off.

“Get back here. It seems the idiots in the 376th Division have made yet another blunder.”

Jing Yo could only guess what that meant.

“Lieutenant?”

“I’m not positive that the man we were following died in the water,” Jing Yo told the colonel. “If I could have an hour to find the body — ”

“Leave it. I need you here.”

“We will come immediately.”

4

“No doubt about it,“ said CIA Director Peter Frost. “A regiment of tanks, right on the border with Vietnam. And there’s more. A lot more. Give them three days, maybe a week, and they can have a full army inside the country.”

President George Chester Greene folded his arms as the head of the CIA continued. Over the past two weeks, the various U.S. intelligence agencies had been piecing together the repositioning of a significant Chinese force along the Vietnamese border. At first there had been considerable debate; the evidence was thin. But it was thin for a reason — the Chinese had taken every conceivable step to conceal the movement.

“The question is what they do with the force,” said National Security Adviser Walter Jackson, the only other man in the Oval Office. “Threaten Vietnam, or invade. This may just be muscle flexing.”

“You don’t flex your muscles in secret,” said Greene drily.

Carried out in the area traditionally assigned to the Thirteenth Army Group, the buildup involved elements of at least two other armies. It had been very carefully timed to avoid overhead satellites, and the units remained far enough from the border to avoid detection by the few Vietnamese units nearby. The Chinese had been so careful that the analysts had no definitive word on the strength of the buildup, and no images of tanks moving, let alone posted on the border. Their estimates depended on inferences gathered mostly from a few photos of support vehicles and units, signal intelligence, and the disappearance of units from their normal assignments.

Nearly ten years before, the PLA had built vast underground shelters in southeastern China about two hours’ drive from the border. They had been abandoned, seemingly forgotten, until just a few weeks ago. Command elements of the Thirteenth Army had deployed from their headquarters to one of the underground shelters. They wouldn’t have moved alone, and Frost believed there could be as much as a regiment of armor in the shelters, invisible to satellites.

“A regiment of armor,” said Frost. “That could be two hundred and forty, two-seventy tanks. With scouts, and some mobile infantry. And then look there — within a day’s drive, maybe two or three if they’re conserving fuel and get confused on the directions — a mechanized division. And then up here, three to four days — two more infantry divisions, with their armor, and two other regiments of tanks. That’s the entire force of the Thirteenth Army, all four divisions. And, we’re tracking command elements of several other divisions not ordinarily attached to the Thirteenth Army positioning themselves just a little farther away. This is going to be immense.”

Greene stared at the globe at the far side of his office, barely paying attention. He could see Hanoi’s five-pointed circle in the northern corner of the country.

He’d been released from a POW camp there more than forty years ago. He’d felt like an old man then, though he was only in his twenties. Now he really was an old man, and he still felt far younger than he had on that day.

Every day away from that hell was a day blessed.

“George?” said Jackson.

The president snapped to attention, as if woken from a dream. “I have it.”

“Clearly, they’re intending an invasion,” said Frost. “There’s no other explanation.”

“State thinks it’s posturing,” said Jackson, criticism obvious in his voice.

“The question is what we should do about it,” continued Frost.

“We can’t do anything about it,” said Jackson. “It’s just Vietnam. That’s the trouble. The American people don’t care about Vietnam. And the few who do care would like to see it crushed. Payback for what happened to their fathers and grandfathers.”

Greene pushed his chair back and rose from his desk. If anyone in America had reason to hate the Vietnamese, it was he. And yet he didn’t. Not the people, anyway.

“It’s not Vietnam I’m worried about,” he said, walking to the globe in the corner of the room.

And if anyone in America had reason to sympathize with the Chinese, it was Greene. He spoke fluent Mandarin; he’d served there for several years as ambassador and had lived in Hong Kong before that. He still had good friends in Beijing.

China was being affected by the worldwide depression and the violent climate changes more severely than many countries across the globe. After recovering from the recession of 2008–2009, the industrialized West had slipped back into deep recession over the past eighteen months. Consumers and businesses had stopped purchasing Chinese goods. The overheated Chinese economy had literally collapsed. Worse, droughts in the north and a succession of typhoons and overly long monsoon seasons in the west had caused spectacular crop failures.

The combination was several times worse than what had occurred in 2009 and 2010, and even made the Great Depression look mild. The Chinese people didn’t know what had hit them.

The country’s disruption had helped bring a new premier, Cho Lai, to power. Clearly, the buildup was part of Cho Lai’s plan to solve China’s problems.

Ironically, the severe weather changes had, on balance, helped the U.S. Its northern states suddenly found themselves in great demand as agricultural centers. So much so that suburban backyards in places like Westchester, New York, and Worcester, Massachusetts, were being plowed under and turned into microfarms.

At the same time, the demise of Chinese imports had led entrepreneurs to reopen factories shuttered for decades. Not surprisingly, items related to the environmental crisis were in great demand. A garden hoe fetched nearly seventy-five dollars at Wal-Mart, and the managers claimed never to be able to keep them in stock.

Of course, there had been considerable disruption in the U.S., and much more was expected, but the country’s size and diversity had so far enabled it to avoid catastrophe. For the first time in two generations, the balance of payments with foreign countries, including China, had turned in America’s favor.

A good thing, considering the country’s massive debt.

“Telling the Vietnamese what’s going to happen will reveal to the Chinese that they haven’t succeeded in fooling our sensors,” said Jackson. “Long term, that will hurt us. If they improve what they’re doing, then we’ll never see them poised to hit Taiwan. Let alone Japan. Vietnam is just not that important. I’m sorry, but that’s a fact.”

Frost said nothing, silently agreeing. Vietnam just wasn’t important in the scheme of things.

And yet, if China wasn’t stopped there, where would it be stopped?

“When will they be ready to attack?” Greene asked.

“Just a guess.” Frost shook his head. “Several days at a minimum. A week. Two weeks. Honestly, very hard to say — what else are they doing that we can’t see?”

“This will just be the start,” said Greene.

“Probably,” admitted Jackson. “But we have to preserve our options for the next attack.”

Greene frowned, not at his advisers, but at himself. He wasn’t sure what to do. In truth, he seemed to have no choice but to let the Chinese attack. The U.S. was powerless to stop an invasion. And yet it was wrong, very, very wrong, to do absolutely nothing.

“Good work, Peter,” said Greene. “Let’s get the Joint Chiefs up to date.”

5

A hundred men beat their drums in the distance, pounding in a staccato rhythm that didn’t quite manage a coherent beat. It was maddening, torturous — there was almost a pattern, but not quite. The drumming built, settling toward a rhythm, only to disintegrate into chaos.

Josh rolled over. He tried pulling the blankets closer, but they were wrapped so tightly that he couldn’t move. Sweat poured from his body, so thick that he began to choke.

I’m drowning.

Drowning.

He twisted over again, grabbing for his pillow. He remembered the dream, the nightmare memory of the homicide that had changed his life irreparably.

He was choking to death, drowning.

With a sudden burst of energy, Josh jerked upright, pulling himself back to full consciousness. He rose, stepping out of the bushes where he’d dragged himself, exhausted, a few hours before.

His mind emptied of all thought, all emotion and sensation. Josh didn’t, couldn’t, think. He couldn’t even feel the presence of his toes or legs or arms. He simply floated in a void, a vacuum within a vacuum.

And then he felt his legs stinging.

His toes were wet and cold. His ankles felt heavy with fluid. He’d wrenched his right knee, and it throbbed. His right thigh felt like it had been punched by one of the trees he’d run into. His sides burned, as if physically on fire. His right lower rib ached, the pain growing, then easing, with each breath. The muscles at the side of his lower chest — the external oblique anterolateral abdominal muscles, a name he knew because he’d torn them in high school playing lacrosse — sent sharp bolts of pain shrieking across the ribs. His right arm felt numb, his shoulder senseless, his fingers cramped stiff. His neck was wrenched to one side. His jaw had locked closed, his back molars grinding against each other.

Oh, God, I’m alive?

What the hell do I do now?

It was light, either just before or just after dawn. The clouds and thick jungle to the east obscured the sun, making it hard to tell.

Josh pushed himself backward, trying to raise himself into a seated position. His hands slipped into mud and he fell backward, dropping into the water behind him. Caught entirely by surprise — he hadn’t thought he was anywhere this close to the creek — he fell below the surface. He rolled and pushed himself up, gulping the air.

Up. Get up. Move. See what’s really hurt.

He rose, then stepped to a small apron of smooth stones at the edge of the stream. The water was calm here, the current very gentle. He looked behind him and saw that the stream had flooded a wide area, a nook between two low hills on the ridge. The area didn’t look familiar, which might mean it was north of their camp. Or it could mean simply that his brain was too scrambled to remember passing it.

Rubbing his thighs with his hands, Josh looked around, belatedly searching the area for his pursuers. Who were they?

Thieves was the only possible answer, and yet it seemed impossible that anyone would want to rob a scientific expedition. Foolhardy, too — the Vietnamese government had endorsed the project, and even sent two soldiers along with the guides.

Thieves were a rarity in Vietnam, and this wasn’t supposed to be a dangerous area: Dr. Renaldo had said the soldiers were along not as protection, but so the Vietnamese could justify the fee they took from the UN’s grant for administration. “The price of doing business,” said the scientist philosophically before they left Hanoi.

So if it was so safe, who had come and killed most of his expedition?

The Vietnamese themselves? It made no sense.

But then, who would kill an Iowa farm family in a murder apparently patterned after the In Cold Blood killings decades before?

Looking for logic from human beings was illogical and often futile. Josh knew that by heart.

There was a knot in his stomach. He was hungry. He tried to remember what Kerry, the flora specialist, had told him about some of the plants. He’d been far more interested in the curve of her hips and the way her small breasts poked at the light muslin shirt than in the nutritional value of the local grasses and brush.

The nearby bushes were thick with green and pink berries. Josh reached for a bunch of the pink ones, then stopped. They might be poison, or simply unripe.

He could wait, he decided. He wasn’t that hungry.

Josh began walking along the bank of the flooded stream, following the ripples in the water as it moved downstream.

Was it the right direction? He reasoned that as long as he moved downhill, he would be heading toward people, but whether that was really a good thing or not he couldn’t say. The Vietnamese tended to be generous toward strangers, but what if the stream brought him to the people who had killed his friends?

Moving was better than sitting.

He was bruised terribly, and his knee hurt, but none of his bones seemed to be broken.

After an hour or so, the sun battered its way through the clouds and the air turned sweet. After another hour, his aches and bruises melted. Except for the insects and the shape of the trees and bushes, he could have been back at school, taking a summer’s hike in the woods.

Josh figured he’d been walking for nearly three hours when he spotted a small bridge made of bamboo and tree trunks spanning the creek. The bamboo on the bridge was bright yellow, relatively new — maybe in place for only a week or two. One of the posts was new as well, a rough-hewn tree trunk stuck into the ground at a slight angle, brown rather than gray like the others.

The bridge connected to a narrow path on both sides of the stream. The jungle was thick on the left, but light filtered through the trees on the right; there was a field beyond.

Josh climbed up the incline to the path, trying to muster his small store of Vietnamese words:

Xin chào!

Hello.

Vâng.

Yes.

Tôi không hiếu.

I don’t understand.

He knew other words. What were they?

Grandfather — Ông. It was an honorific, a tide that the Vietnamese used all the time. It was like saying “sir.”

Other words.

Josh tried to stoke his memory, dredging up full phrases and sentences. Vietnamese had tones that went with the sounds, dramatically altering their meaning — a word could mean a ghost, or a rice plant, or a horse, depending on how it was pronounced.

Ngon. Very tasty. The food is very tasty. Can you call for help.

Can you call for help?

Công an. Công an.

Police.

Depending on whom he met, Vietnamese might be of little use. Most of the residents of the valley were Hmong natives, who didn’t speak much Vietnamese themselves. They were poor mountain people, still very close to their roots as nomadic, slash-and-burn farmers.

The trail looped back around the side of a hill, then continued through a patch of jungle. Josh walked steadily, sticking to the side of the trail so he could jump into the grass and hide if he heard anyone. As he turned a corner, he saw a cluster of thatch-roofed huts on the opposite slope. They were about a mile away, across a steep, rock-strewn ravine.

Josh ran his hand over the slight stubble of his morning beard. Would the people help him?

Yes, he decided. They must. They would. He began trotting down the path, trusting that it would curve back toward the hamlet.

6

Mara Duncan was engulfed in a human tidal wave as she stepped out the side door of her apartment building, swept along on the sidewalk with literally hundreds of other Bangkok residents making their way to their morning posts. The entire city seemed to be flooding to work or school, and a good portion of the population seemed to be using the small side street where she lived.

It was always like this, not only here, but all through Bangkok and the close-in suburbs, where the population had gone from an unofficial fifteen million to nearly thirty million in less than a decade. Bangkok — known to most Thai-speaking locals as Krung Thep — was the unofficial poster city for the Third World’s population explosion. The streets were perpetually crowded and a thick shroud of pollution hung over the city. But it was a place of great wealth and commerce as well, a twenty-first-century boomtown that justifiably evoked comparisons to America’s Chicago or even New York in the early twentieth.

No fewer than five new skyscrapers were being built in the city; each was over one hundred stories tall. One of the buildings, Thai Wah V, was planned to top 45 5 meters — a height that would make it, not coincidentally, about a yardstick taller than Malaysia’s Petronas Towers I and II. The tower’s foundation was considered a modern engineering marvel, due to the wet ground that characterized so much of the city.

Mara glanced around as she joined the line to the escalators up to the skytrain. Bangkok was home to hundreds of spies from nearly every nation on earth, and it was not unusual for them to try to keep tabs on interesting Americans, whether they were known CIA officers or not. Two weeks before, Mara had been followed for several days, apparently by a Russian freelancer who bought her cover as a local sales rep for an American medical-equipment manufacturer and was trying to hunt up information for a Swiss firm. Either he’d lost interest or figured out who she really was; in any event, he’d disappeared without making an approach.

She missed him, in a way. He’d added a little spice to her mornings. Things had been dull since she’d come back from Malaysia.

The escalator moved swiftly. People stood only six or seven deep on the skytrain platform, a sign that there would be at least a five-minute wait for the next train. Mara wedged her way through the crowd, once again looking to make sure that she wasn’t being followed or observed.

The CIA’s Thailand bureau, traditionally one of the agency’s biggest in Asia, had grown exponentially over the past four years, and with space at the embassy at a premium, many of the officers worked in one of the “outbuildings” — secure suites rented by the CIA nearby. Mara’s office was in a building two blocks from the embassy; the agency leased five whole floors, but the offices were located in only two. While security was tight — the elevators had been rigged so that they couldn’t stop at the floor at all, and the stairwells were guarded by armed men — the “annex” had a much looser atmosphere than the embassy. The jokes were bawdier, and the coffee was better.

Or so the annex’s unofficial mayor claimed. He was in rare form when Mara arrived.

“You look just mah-valous,” Jesse DeBiase bellowed as she stepped out of the stairs. “Come taste some of the best joe this side of Seattle.”

“I don’t think I can drink another cup today,” said Mara.

“But dah-link, you must. Think of your fans.”

“All right, Million Dollar Man. If it’ll make you happy.”

DeBiase bowed. Just about everyone in the station called him Million Dollar Man, though most had no idea where he’d gotten the nickname. A few thought it was a reference to an op he’d run years before. In reality, he’d been awarded it decades before because his last name sounded the same as Ted DiBiase’s, a pro wrestler popular at the time. Why the CIA had ever hired a wrestling fan remained one of the agency’s most perplexing mysteries.

DeBiase was one of the deputy station chiefs, in title the annex supervisor, though he claimed his authority barely entitled him to order stationery. Mara had no idea what the Million Dollar Man did beyond telling stories to his officermates; he had never given her an assignment nor mentioned any of his. The latter might not have been particularly surprising, except that the Million Dollar Man talked so much about everything that it was hard to imagine that he would be able to resist at least hinting, indirectly, about things he had done in the distant if not recent past. But DeBiase never talked shop that way, and never seemed to have any appointments that had even the vaguest possible connection to espionage, real or potential. He was either very old-school about keeping secrets, or an officer who’d spent his career being promoted sideways and had never had anything real to do.

Probably the former, but you never could tell.

Today’s topic was his upcoming hernia operation, as yet unscheduled, but planned for the first week or maybe second after he returned to the States.

“Why not here?” asked Mara. Thailand had world-class medical care, and in fact many Americans flew there for so-called surgery vacations.

“No,” he said. “No. Some things — I was made in America. I’ll be fixed in America. So to speak.”

“So when are you going?” asked Mara.

“Soon,” said DeBiase. It was the same answer he’d given when they were introduced weeks before.

“What the hell’s keeping you here?” asked Tai Lai as he stirred creamer into his coffee. Alone among the annex denizens, Lai preferred powdered dairy substitute to the real milk and cream the Million Dollar Man managed to have delivered fresh twice a week. It couldn’t be for his health; Lai, who was on his second tour in Bangkok, stood about six feet and weighed all of 140. A good wind would push him over — though not break him, as he was a karate expert and in excellent shape.

Or so the certificates and trophies he kept in his office claimed.

“Duty, young Mr. Lai,” said the Million Dollar Man expansively. “The same thing that keeps us all here. Except Ms. Duncan. She is here because she sinned rather badly in her past life, and must now atone for it.”

“So Bangkok is the Buddhist hell?” Mara poured her coffee.

“Worse.”

“I go through this and in my next life I come back as a butterfly?”

“The Buddhist concept of hell is separate from reincarnation,” said DeBiase. “There is not necessarily any escape.”

“Describes Bangkok perfectly,” said Lai.

“Actually, there are many different strains of Buddhism,” said DeBiase, “and talking about specific beliefs can be highly contradictory.”

He was now in professor mode; there would be no interrupting his discourse until he had completely dissected the various strands of Buddhist belief, a process which could take hours. Mara took her coffee and slipped down the hall to the small office she shared with another officer exiled from the field, Roth Setco.

Roth was a dark and moody man; it was not unusual for him to sit at his desk staring at the blank wall in front of him for hours on end. Not yet thirty, he had thick scars on his right leg and both arms, and two small ones on his right cheek. His nose looked as if it had been broken several times, and the lobe of his right ear was either deformed or had been torn off and then poorly repaired. His long hair covered his ear, and possibly other scars on his neck. He wasn’t in this morning — neither a surprise nor unwelcome.

Mara flipped on her computer. As she was waiting for it to boot, her secure satellite phone vibrated, indicating that she was receiving an instant message from the bureau’s secure paging system. It was from Peter Lucas, the station chief, and consisted of one word: Come. He wanted to see her over at his office in the embassy.

She killed her computer and reversed course, gliding past the Million Dollar Man, still holding court.

Peter Lucas checked his watch as he passed into the secure communications suite. He was due to have lunch with the ambassador at the British embassy at noon; his counterpart from MI6 would be there, and while no agenda had been mentioned, the Brits would surely want to discuss the situation in southern Thailand, where the rebel movement was a growing concern to both countries.

The recent discovery of oil along Thailand’s southern coast would complicate things further. The world might be rapidly shifting away from oil as a fuel source, but the commodity’s value still seemed to double every other week.

They’d also be talking about Myanmar and Vietnam, as well as Malaysia. Lucas’s portfolio had been expanded beyond Thailand and Malaysia three days before; he was now in charge of operations in Vietnam, Myanmar, Laos, and Cambodia as well. Officially, the move was temporary, due to a pending reorganization of the CIA’s Southeast Asia section; unofficially, Lucas was going to head whatever permanent arrangement resulted.

The shuffle was widely known inside the agency, and it was no secret to MI6, either. But the real reason for the reorganization was that the CIA’s Vietnam bureau had been compromised.

The counterintelligence people were trying to sort out exactly what was going on. The office’s main focus over the past two years had been drug smuggling, and it was clear that at least one officer there had been taking money from an Asian gang. But the NSA eavesdropping programs indicated that some elements of the top secret daily intelligence summaries prepared by the office were being read in Hanoi as well. The counterintelligence people were trying to trace the leak and see who exactly was involved. In the meantime, the office was essentially unusable.

Which was why he had called Mara over this morning.

She was waiting in the antechamber of the suite. Sitting in one of the leather club chairs — Lucas had personally ordered them installed upon his arrival the year before — she fidgeted nervously, clearly anxious and probably excited at the prospect of a new assignment. He remembered that feeling well — he’d felt it himself dozens and dozens of times, maybe hundreds, when he was a young stud.

Not that he didn’t feel enthusiasm now, at age fifty, but it was tempered, respectful of the pitfalls and problems that inevitably accompanied a job for the CIA. Too respectful, maybe.

“You’re looking good,” said Lucas, sliding down into the seat across from her. The secure suite was isolated from the rest of the building by a number of systems that made it impossible to bug. “How are you feeling?”

“You know your message could be considered suggestive,” said Mara.

“Suggestive?”

“Come?”

“Excuse me?”

“That’s what you wrote, Pete.”

“I was just being terse.”

She cocked her head slightly, still smiling, her body openly flirting. It was all subconscious. Tall and large-boned, Mara had an almost playful nature, a natural outgoingness that Lucas always associated with jocks. Her personality would have made her an excellent recruiter, though it wasn’t hard to guess why she had been moved into that area — she was far from ugly, but she wasn’t a knockout either, and her height would be considered a negative by old hands, especially in Asia. Spies wanted to be seduced, or so the theory went; few men were attracted to a woman who could just as easily whip them as seduce them.

As it was, she’d proven herself an excellent PM, or paramilitary officer, though at times a bit aggressive, as her last supervisor in Malaysia had written.

Lucas preferred the word “rambunctious” to aggressive. She was still young; she’d grow out of it. Not too much, he hoped.

“Refresh my memory,” he told her, backing into her assignment. “How good is your Vietnamese?”

“It’s fantastic.”

“I’ll bet.”

“Xin chào. Toi hiêu. “

Hello. I understand.

The tones — there were six in Vietnamese — were off a bit, but the words were intelligible.

“I won’t embarrass you,” said Lucas. “You won’t need very good language skills on this.”

“What do we need?”

“It’s not really a very important job, or very complicated. You fly into Hanoi and meet a Belgian national in our employ.”

“Okay.” She nodded.

“Talk to him, then come back.”

“Great.”

“His name is Bernard Fleming. He speaks English.”

“When do I leave?”

Lucas couldn’t help but smile. Most of his people would have asked a few questions before taking the job, masking their enthusiasm even if it was already a foregone conclusion that they were going.

“There’s a flight this afternoon. You’re already booked,” Lucas told her. “I suppose you’d like to hear what this is all about.”

Fleming was a UN observer on a scientific survey team. They’d been sent to northern Vietnam to gather data on biological changes connected with the recent dramatic shifts in the weather. She would go to Vietnam as a journalist working for Voice of America; she was doing a story on climate change, and was talking to Fleming because he was the only one authorized by the UN to talk about the mission.

Not really, of course.

The area where the survey team was headed was near the suspected crash site of an Air Force F-105 during the Vietnam War; the pilot of the aircraft was still officially listed as MIA. Mara was to ask Fleming if he’d seen any sign of the plane.

That wasn’t really what she was doing, either. She would bring that up, but the matter was really a second-string cover story, to be used to placate the Vietnamese if they got very nosy. His real assignment was considerably more delicate.

The agency wanted to plant listening devices in the area to spy on the Chinese — without Vietnamese cooperation — and Fleming had been asked to survey possible sites. Mara was supposed to see how things were going.

Though planned months before, the mission had taken on extreme significance because of recent Chinese troop movements nearby. The intelligence about those movements was so sensitive that Lucas couldn’t even tell Mara about them. If he did, and she somehow was captured, by the Chinese or the Vietnamese, America’s intelligence-gathering capacities would be severely compromised.

That wasn’t going to happen, Lucas thought to himself. Basically, the assignment was a long, late dinner, with maybe some cocktails later on. Fleming would be in Hanoi for only a day, dropping off some snail mail and picking up supplies before heading back by truck to the survey area.

“The border area between the two countries is sensitive, as always,” added Lucas. “So ask him about it. The more information you can get, the better. Check in when you get there. Yada yada yada; you know the drill.”

“Don’t talk to locals?”

She was referring to the CIA bureau in Vietnam. Lucas hesitated. He trusted Mara, and knew she was connected to the problems there, but wanted to tell her only what was absolutely necessary.

“You should not talk to the locals, no,” he told her.

“Not at all?”

He shook his head.

“Okay. If I have problems I check in here?”

“Absolutely. You think you can handle all this?”

“In my sleep.”

“Let’s try it awake, just for practice.”

7

The path Josh had taken swung back into the jungle for roughly a mile before starting to descend along the valley. It wove a zigzag path downward, the cutbacks easing, though not completely eliminating, the angle of the slope. The bottom of the valley was not a river as Josh had first supposed, but rather a road; though not paved, it was much wider than the path, with tire tracks that looked relatively fresh. Yellow dirt and silver-white rocks lined the bed; the shoulders were rutted grass and occasional ditches.

He couldn’t see the village from where he was, and had lost his sense of which way it would be.

A monkey screeched in the distance. Another joined in, then another. The sound rattled Josh, seemingly vibrating in his teeth. He decided to go left.

What was the word for hello?

Xin chào!

Can you speak English?

They would know right away that he was an American, smell it before they even saw him — Americans and Europeans smelled like the soap they washed their bodies with. His clothes, his haircut, his face, his manner — everything about him would make it obvious.

They would know he was an American and they would help him get back to Hanoi.

Good God, had it all been a dream? How could it be possible that robbers had come in and murdered the whole camp? What strange twist of fate was this, to have to endure two massacres in a lifetime?

What luck was it to have escaped both times?

Josh heard chickens clucking ahead. His heart pounded even harder.

“I need help,” he mumbled to himself, rehearsing. “My friends have been killed.”

He started to run.

“I need help,” he said louder. “I need help.”

He turned the corner. The chickens, a dozen of them, were scattered in and along the road. When they saw him they moved toward him excitedly.

The buildings sat above an elbow in the road at his right. Josh began running toward them, looking for people.

“Help!” he shouted. “I need help!”

Two cottages sat very close to the road. Both were one-story, windowless structures made of wood. Their steeply pitched roofs paired wood and sheets of rusted tin in a patchwork that seemed more artistic than functional. A slanted fence used for drying clothes stood to the right of the closest one; two large sheets and a man’s pants hung on it, flapping in the wind.

“Hey!” yelled Josh. “Help! I need help!”

He ran up the path, along the front of the house to the open door.

“Please,” he yelled. “Please.”

He slowed as he neared the door, then stopped.

“Help!” he shouted. “Hey! Hey!”

Inside, the house was dark. There was a table and chairs on his left, a primitive stove beyond them. Bedding was laid out on the right.

A loud moo startled him — the only inhabitant was the family’s cow, its long oval eyes blinking at him from the corner.

Josh had been raised on farms, but the cow being in the house unsettled him. The animal mooed again, and Josh took a step backward, unsure of himself.

Perhaps everything was a dream, a nightmare that extended all the way back to his childhood.

Moooo.

The sound was more grunt than moo. The animal followed him out. It wasn’t a cow but an ox.

It wouldn’t be unusual for a family to keep their animals in the house with them if they were very poor.

There was a noise behind him. Josh swung around, expecting to see a person. But it was a monkey.

The animal made a face at him, then ducked past into the house. It ran into the shadows at the side, scampering around among some furniture, then emerged with what looked like a potato, its white flesh revealed by the animal’s chiseled bite mark. The monkey shot by and scampered into the jungle, chattering as it ran.

“Hey!” yelled Josh. “Is anybody around? Hey? Hey!”

No one answered. The ox looked at him quizzically.

“Hello? Hey! Hello! Where is everyone!” shouted Josh, twisting around. “Can you help me? I need to get in touch with the authorities. I’ve been robbed.”

There was no one in the house next to the first, either. Walking up to a second cluster of buildings, he found a small shack set just off the clearing, at the side of what appeared to be a garden. It reeked of dung. He stuck his head inside, saw nothing except for a pile in the corner, then retreated, gasping for fresh air.

Josh wondered whether it might be market day. The people didn’t seem to have left in a hurry; there were no plates on the tables, no food in the pots, no possessions seemingly left for the moment. He walked in a circuit around the settlement, calling, expecting someone to answer at any second. As each minute passed, he became more optimistic, more set in the opinion that the villagers had gone off to either their chores or some nearby event. Finding them was only a matter of time.

The hamlet was wedged into the hillside, and his circuits took him up and down the incline flanking the road. Cleared but unplanted fields lay above and below the houses.

He was hungry. If the people didn’t mind a monkey stealing their food, they surely wouldn’t begrudge him. He’d pay them back, as soon as he was rescued.

Josh walked to a hut next to the lower field. It was built directly into the slope at the back, but otherwise was just like all the others, its large roof extending below the walls. He ducked his head to get through the door, then stood just inside the threshold for a few seconds as his eyes adjusted.

The area to the left was used by the family to sleep; the bedding was disheveled, piled haphazardly. Some of the blankets were rolled against the wall. There were clothes nearby. Josh walked over, staring at the dark shapes.

A set of sandals sat neatly at his left, next to a folded pair of pants and a cone-shaped hat. Josh bent to examine the hat. As he did, he glanced at the corner of the room. The shape of the blankets caught his eye, and for a moment he thought they were a body. He turned away quickly, but then curiosity forced him back.

It’s not a body. It’s just the weird way the blankets are.

There was definitely a blanket; the shape had a fold and curled furls. But it did look like a body.

He took a step toward it, his mind insisting his eyes were wrong.

It’s not a body.

And then his mind admitted what it saw: a dark black stain in the middle of the tan covering. It was definitely a body, wrapped in the blanket where it had been shot, thrown against the side of the house by the force of the bullets striking it.

Josh bolted from the house, his stomach turning.

8

Zeus Murphy gunned his Corvette away from the sentry post, spitting gravel as he exercised the classic Chevy’s engine.

“They don’t make ‘em like this anymore,” said his passenger, Steve Rosen.

Murphy laughed. He’d heard people say that at least a hundred times since his assignment at the War College began, and he’d been here only a few weeks.

It was literally true: they didn’t make Corvettes anymore, or any other car that got less than fifty miles to a gallon of gas. Even if the law hadn’t forbidden it, gas cost $14.39 a gallon; between that and the annual pollution surtax, few people wanted to pony up for a new sports car, especially when used ones could be purchased at bargain prices. Everyone said that in four or five years hydrogen-cell vehicles would match the “classics” in acceleration, top speed, and handling, but they’d been saying that for years.

Murphy wasn’t sure how much longer he could keep the Vette, a gift from his dad. Even after the raise that went with his promotion to major, paying for the gas was tough. It was quickly eating up the store of money he’d earned from combat pay as a Special Forces trainer in Ukraine.

Oh well — easy come, easy go.

Or not so easy come. There’d been a few times when he didn’t actually expect he’d make it home.

Zeus leaned on the wheel and turned hard onto the interior road, then swung into the parking lot in front of Building B-3, the prosaic name of the War College’s newest structure. Built with so-called green construction techniques, its entrance sloped upward from the earth, jutting out from under a moss-covered roof. The building’s geothermal system handled all of its heating and cooling; electricity was supplied by a farm of solar electric panels that flanked the northern side of the building.

The panels could not supply all of the building’s electric needs; there wasn’t enough space for panels or battery capacity to compensate for Pennsylvania’s cloudy weather. Even the high-efficiency windmills at the far end of the property couldn’t quite generate enough electricity to satisfy the hungry computer servers in B-3’s basement. Nonetheless, the building showed how serious the Army was about energy initiatives. It had been the subject of stories by nearly every media organization when it had opened a year before. Some of the techniques used in its construction would set the standards for years to come.

“Another day, another ass-kicking,” said Rosen, unsnapping the seat belt as Murphy turned off the engine. “How long will the U.S. last today?”

“Give them six months,” said Murphy, unfolding his six-eight frame from the low-slung car.

“Perry was pissed Friday when you bombed San Francisco at the start of the simulation.”

“Hey, it’s allowable under the rules.”

Rosen laughed. Known as Red Dragon, the simulation they were running pitted the U.S. — Blue — against China — Red. Neither country’s name was ever mentioned in the game, of course, but everyone who played knew who was who.

“They may change the rules if you keep this up,” said Rosen. “They’ll take away your advantage.”

“The rules are already lopsided in Blue’s favor,” said Zeus. “The simulation underestimates Chinese abilities.”

“Most of their army is way undertrained.”

“That’s reflected in the game. It’s overstated, really. China is like the U.S. in the late thirties. Capacity to kill.”

Zeus waved his pass in front of the card reader, which took the biometric data on its chip and compared it to the image before it, as well as the one stored in its own database. It took a few nanoseconds to make sure everything matched, then opened the door and let Zeus inside. Rosen had to wait to do the same — the system would not let more than one person pass at a time. Once inside, the two men passed through an eight-foot-wide by twenty-foot-long chamber; as they did, chemical and radiation sensors “sniffed” them to make sure they weren’t carrying anything dangerous.

Then came the live checks. The sentry in the vestibule inserted the ID cards into his own reader, then had them open their bags and empty their pockets for inspection.

“Sergeant Jacobs, you do this every day,” said Rosen. “Don’t you know us by now?”

“Sir, I do this every day because I know you.”

“If you didn’t, you’d strip-search us?”

“If necessary, sir.”

“You want to see us in our undies, don’t you, Sergeant?”

“Not so soon after breakfast.”

Finally waved through, the two officers walked down the hall past a wall of glass that looked out on a man-made pond and waterfall (part of the heating and cooling system), then took the stairs to the lower level. They were a few feet from their assigned office when Colonel Doner, who ran the simulation section, called out to them.

“Majors, good of you to show up this morning.”

“Colonel, we’re ten minutes early by my watch,” said Rosen.

“Ten minutes early is twenty minutes late by my watch, Rosen.” Doner scowled at him. “Come and talk with me, Zeus.”

The colonel spun on his heel and walked down the hall to his office. Murphy gave Rosen a shrug and followed.

“Maggie, get the major some coffee, please,” said Doner briskly as he passed through the outer office into his lair.

Murphy smiled at Maggie. She had a round, exotic face and perfect hips, but unfortunately had only recently married, and was therefore officially out of bounds according to Murphy’s sense of duty and honor.

Not to mention the fact that her husband was a Special Forces lieutenant colonel who not only outranked him but knew even more ways than he did to kill with his bare hands.

“Just a little milk, Major?” she asked, getting up from her desk. The coffee was located down the hall in a small lounge.

“Just a little,” said Zeus. He watched her walk out the door, then went into Doner’s office.

“See something you like?” said Doner. He frowned, though not as severely as he had at Rosen.

“I know the boundaries, sir.”

“I’m sure you do. Hang on just a second.”

Doner had four different workstations lined up on the table behind his desk. Two showed simulations in progress. He made sure each was working properly, then pulled out his seat and sat down. Besides his personal laptop, a simple Dell open at the corner of his desk, he had no less than twelve working CPUs in the office, most of them in a double bank against the far wall. There were also a number of laptops stacked on a trolley in the corner.

Doner was not the typical hands-off military supervisor Zeus had expected from his tours before Special Forces. The colonel was an unabashed geek who had hand-assembled several of the larger computers in the office, and written parts of the software that ran the war games simulations he oversaw.

Doner liked to claim that when he had joined the Army, the only thing he knew about computers was how to turn them on; while it was a slight exaggeration, the forty-year-old colonel had truly learned on the job.

“All right,” said Doner, returning to his desk. “How was your weekend?”

“Real fine, Mike. Yours?”

“The ten-year-old needs braces. I didn’t know they put them in braces that early.”

“Neither did I.”

“I don’t think I even knew there was such a thing as braces until I was sixteen or seventeen,” said Doner.

And by then it was too late, thought Zeus — though he didn’t say it. That was the difference between him and Rosen. His friend didn’t know when to shut the hell up. Not very important for a captain, but critical for a major, and all ranks above.

“You probably didn’t need braces, did you?” added Doner.

“No, actually I didn’t.”

“Charmed life.” Doner smiled — it was a crooked smile, with a bit too much enamel missing on the front teeth — then leaned back in his chair. “Zeus, I need a favor from you.”

“A favor?”

“We have some visitors coming today. They’re interested in seeing Red Dragon.”

Murphy felt his face flush. The colonel was going to ask him to throw the simulation and let Perry win.

Could he agree to that?

It wasn’t simply a matter of ego. Though they operated like very sophisticated computer games, the simulations were very serious business. The results were recorded and analyzed, then integrated into various war plans and strategy papers prepared by the Army staff. The results from one simulation might not make that big a difference in the overall scheme of things… and then again, they might. Especially if he threw the simulation to let the U.S. win.

But was this a request he could turn down?

Before he could ask, Maggie returned with the coffee. Glad for the interruption, Zeus took the cup, then fussed over how hot the liquid was, waving his hand over it.

“As I was saying, we have a few VIPs coming today, and we’d like them to see the simulation in action.”

“Ordinarily General Cody deals with VIPs.”

“Yes, but the general won’t be here today. He has business elsewhere.”

So I have to take one for the team, thought Zeus. He sipped his coffee, waiting for Doner to drop the other shoe. But Doner didn’t say anything.

“Well, okay,” said Zeus finally, standing up. “Guess I better go get myself ready then.”

“There is a little more to it.”

Here it comes, thought Zeus, sitting back down.

“We’re going to use Scenario One — Lightning War.”

“Okay,” said Zeus. The scenario called for war in the very first round, a condition that generally favored Red.

“Thing is, I’d like you to take Blue.”

“You want me to be Blue?” said Murphy. He tried to keep his voice level, but his relief still came through.

“General Perry is pretty much convinced that there’s no way for Red to lose. I don’t blame him, given the results over the past year.”

“A year? I thought we were the first to use it.”

“Officially, yes. But I had it in beta before you got here. I’ve run this scenario for a while, Zeus. In different guises. If Red plays smart, it takes over Asia. The other scenarios are much more balanced, but this one always stacks the deck.”

“And here I thought I was a brilliant strategist.”

“You’re not bad.” Doner gave him another of his crooked smiles. “You’re good, in fact. But the deck is stacked. Not on purpose,” the colonel added hastily. “Red Dragon is as close to real life as we can get. Except for that bit you pulled about San Francisco.”

“I think the Chinese would definitely try that,” said Zeus.

“Maybe. But they’d never get into the harbor that easily.”

Murphy had used civilian airplanes and cargo ships — allowed under the game rules — to sneak an advance force into the city, paving the way for a larger conventional attack. Neither side was theoretically at war yet, which made the surprise tactic even easier to pull off. It was exactly the way things might start, Murphy knew — the twenty-first-century equivalent of Pearl Harbor.

“So I’m today’s sacrificial lamb, huh?” Murphy got up. “I’ll go down quickly.”

“No, no, play hard. Play as hard as you can. Play to win. Definitely play to win.”

“But the deck is stacked, right?”

Doner shrugged. “Play as hard as you can.”

Even with the most conventional strategies, Blue’s position in Asia was hopeless if war was declared in the first round. There was simply no time to get troops there, and no reliable ally to stop Red early enough to keep it from achieving its objective. No matter what Red’s immediate tactical goals were — Taiwan, Japan, Indochina, even Australia — Blue could never rally its forces quickly enough. In fact, any response in force ran the risk of leaving it so weak that Red was positioned to launch a successful invasion of the U.S. mainland.

“Complete naval blockade, Day One,” said Rosen, whom Murphy had tagged as his chief of staff, by rule his main collaborator in the day’s session. “You build up the walls on the West Coast, and hang on.”

“That loses. They get whatever they want, game over.”

Murphy rose from the console. The simulation played out on a large 3-D map projected from a table in each game room, as well as smaller laptop devices all interconnected through a wireless network. The table was really a very large computer screen that made use of a plasma technology to create stunningly realistic graphics; a viewer watching troops move through the map display could easily believe he was sitting in an airplane.

“Preemptive strike is suicide,” said Rosen. “Griffin tried that against Cody the first week I was here. Led to a nuclear exchange in Month Two.”

Another loss, according to the rules of the scenario.

“Wasn’t what I was thinking.”

“Our best bet is following doctrine, right down the line,” said Rosen. “Be the graceful losers. And make sure winners buy. Who are the VIPs, anyway?”

“Who cares?” Zeus pulled out one of the workstation seats and sat down. The Red Team was across the hall, undoubtedly putting the finishing details on the plan. General Perry would be off with the VIPs, but his chief of staff was Major Win Christian — the valedictorian at West Point Major the year Murphy graduated. Murphy had been in the top half of his class, but nowhere near Christian.

Which suited him just fine. Staying away from Christian had been his basic game plan his four years at the Point, after an unfortunate run-in with his fellow plebe during orientation. Christian was already a favorite of the staff because his father was a graduate and a general, and the incident had given Zeus exactly the sort of reputation no cadet wanted. He survived that first semester, but just barely.

Every time his path crossed with Christian’s following that, whether it was in sports, academics, or social life, inevitably Zeus came off on the losing side.

It would be really nice to clock the SOB today.

“What are you doing?” asked Rosen.

“There’s got to be a solution.”

“That’s what Perry’s been telling his people for the past week and a half, and we still cleaned his clock. Perry has tried everything.”

“Yeah.”

“If there was a solution, Doner would have told it to Perry by now.”

“Maybe he doesn’t know it.”

“Oh, he knows it. He knows everything.”

Zeus pulled up the statistics panel, checking to see the average length of hostility — the amount of time Blue usually hung in before the game was lost by the computer. It was only three months.

Three months.

China would defeat America in an Asian war in three months.

Without nuclear weapons.

If it were World War II, America would be out of the war by March 1942. No reinforcements for the Soviets, no invasion of Africa, Italy, and then Normandy. No atom bomb on Hiroshima or Nagasaki — Hitler would have gotten the bomb and used it on London after taking Moscow and confining the tattered remains of the Russian army to eastern Siberia.

Maybe he wouldn’t bother using the bomb; he could just starve them out, assuming the U.S. abided by whatever terms the peace treaty with Japan provided. And if the U.S. didn’t, then he’d use it on New York and Washington, D.C., instead. Before turning it on the Japanese.

Correlating simulations to real life was a dangerous and fruitless exercise; the simulations were set up to test different theories and situations. Even if they were supposedly neutral, there was no way to accurately account for all of the variables in real life. Once the shooting started and the fog of war descended, even the best plans usually went out the window.

Still, if real life was even remotely this hopeless, America ought to sue for peace right now.

What would he do if this were real?

Try to get Red to attack the Russians.

“You coming to lunch?” said Rosen.

“Huh?”

“I just asked you twice: Do you want to go get lunch?”

“What we need is a proxy,” said Murphy. He jumped up and walked over to the table. “Someone weak at the beginning of the simulation whom we can build up secretly.”

“Then let Red use as a punching bag?”

“Something like that.”

“Let’s eat.”

“You go. I have to look at the rules.”

“Hell, you’re going to read the rules? I thought you wanted to win.”

9

Finally, there was nothing left for Josh’s stomach to give up. He rose shakily, furling his fists under his arms.

There were no illusions left for his mind to fool itself with, either. Optimism was absurd. Survival itself might even be out of the question.

Blundering into the village was a mistake, a stupid mistake. Whoever did this could have been waiting. Why did I do it? Do I want to die?

Hell no. I won’t. I won’t.

So do something right. Find a weapon. Find a way out.

If he was going to survive, if he was going to make it through this, he had to act like a scientist. He had to be detached, unemotional, take each step carefully.

Josh alternately scolded and encouraged himself as he searched through the hamlet for things he could use. He told himself to act like a survivor, and a scientist. He went back to each hut, forcing himself to look more thoroughly inside. He didn’t find any more bodies, but he saw more evidence of shootings — blood clotted on the dirt floors, bullet holes. Things he’d missed or ignored earlier — like the broken furniture — were obvious to him now, and told a consistent tale: the hamlet had been attacked, probably massacred, and then hastily cleaned up.

Josh looked for weapons in the huts. He found a pair of hunting knives, and ammunition for a rifle, but not guns. He took the bullets, hoping he might find the gun, and continued his search. It was difficult to be as empirical as he wanted — his fingers trembled just clutching the box of loose shells. But he was calmer than before, more aware of his surroundings and himself.

At some point, he slipped his hand into his pocket and took out the camera that had been in his pants since the night before. He began videoing everything, beginning with the person in the darkness of the empty cottage. At first he narrated what he was doing, giving the date and the rough location. Then he just let the camera record.

After ten minutes, the memory was full. He turned the camera off and put it back into his pocket, continuing to look around the village and the nearby fields.

Maybe there hadn’t been a massacre here — maybe the villager had been killed by someone in the village. That might explain why everyone had fled.

He doubted it was true, but it was a plausible, or at least possible, explanation. Josh continued walking around the village and nearby fields, looking for more evidence.

It wasn’t until he had stared at the upper field for a few minutes that he realized part of it had been turned over, while the one below had not.

Who would work a field in February?

Josh sank slowly to his knees. There were footprints — boots. He traced one of the boot marks with his index finger. It was a man’s boot, about his size, perhaps one or two sizes smaller.

Evidence of what had happened.

He didn’t need it; he’d seen enough.

There was doubt, though. Just one body.

If this were a weather event, he would gather as much data as he possibly could. He would leave nothing to chance.

Josh put his hands into the earth. His heart began throbbing. He pulled the dirt toward him. It resisted. He dug deeper and pulled again.

After his fourth or fifth pull, the dirt came away easily. Sweat ran down the sides of his neck as he worked.

Five minutes after he started digging, Josh’s left hand pushed against something that felt like a stick. He pushed a little more, then scooped upward, removing the dirt but not revealing the object. He took as slow a breath as he could manage, and began to dig again, gently though steadily. He moved the dirt around the object like he thought an archaeologist would, bringing it slowly to the surface.

A thick tree branch.

An old shirt on a stone.

An arm, with fingers rolled into a ball.

Enough.

Josh took out the camera and erased one of the files he had shot the night before, giving himself about a minute and a half more of video time. He panned the area, then closed in on the arm, focusing on the hand.

Done, he replaced the dirt with his foot, eyes closed, tamped it back down, and returned to the village.

10

“Let’s see the video,“ said President Greene.

A screen rose slowly from the middle of the table of the secure situation room. Over in the Pentagon, the Joint Chiefs turned their attention to a similar display at the front of the large secure room there.

A news clip began to play. China’s Premier Cho Lai was speaking to a crowd of over one hundred thousand packed into Tiananmen Square. His face was red, his hand motions emphatic.

His words were translated in English subtitles on the screen. Though literally correct, the translation did not quite catch the nuances of venom and racism.

Greene caught it all. His Chinese was fluent, and he needed no help in deciphering the full implication of Premier Cho Lai’s words. The message could be summed up in one word: war.

Though that was a word the premier never used.

“We must recover the dignity of the Chinese people, sullied too long by those inferior to us, those with despicable agendas, those with goals we cannot share,” declared Cho Lai. The premier paused to listen as the crowd erupted in applause.

Greene shook his head. Despite what his critics and late-night comics sometimes implied, the president wasn’t old enough to have heard Hider’s speeches firsthand, but he knew they sounded something like this.

“You can turn it off. Peter, review the intelligence, please,” Greene told CIA Director Peter Frost.

Frost began speaking, detailing the Chinese buildup as he had earlier for the president and national security adviser. Everyone sitting in on the briefing, both at the Pentagon and at the White House, had heard or seen at least some of the intelligence Frost reviewed. Nonetheless, the CIA director’s pithy summary placed the situation in stark relief, and to a person they seemed surprised, and deeply troubled.

“We’re looking at World War III here,” said the chief of staff, Army General Clayton Fisk. “First Vietnam, then the rest of Asia. India — they won’t stop.”

Fisk gets it, thought Greene. Finally.

One American convinced. Another 350 million to go.

“Maybe they take the country in a few months,” said the Air Force chief, Tarn Washington. “Or maybe they get bogged down there like we did in the 1960s. Maybe they don’t even attack. The Chinese have a habit of moving troops to their borders. Look what they did at Myanmar a couple of years ago. They’re bullies, but they don’t actually want to stub their toes, let alone get bloodied.”

“The question is, how can we stop them?” said Admiral Nancy Gilead, the Navy head. “If that’s what we want to do.”

“We can’t,” said Fisk quickly. “We can’t get troops there. And frankly, the American people would never stand for it. Never.”

Secretary of State Theodore “Tad” Knox nodded his head vigorously.

“How long before they invade?” asked Fisk.

“If they invade,” said Washington.

“The analysts’ best consensus is that they’re a week away, maybe two, from being in a position where they can attack,” said Frost. “It’s a guess though.”

“It could be sooner?” asked Fisk.

“Possibly.”

“With all due respect, I have to disagree,” said General Peter Shoemaker. Shoemaker headed the Army. “The Chinese are a notoriously slow-moving army. They could take months getting into position — and a half a year going over the border. Especially in western Vietnam. Their history is against them.”

“They’ve been studying Shock and Awe for years,” said Jackson.

“I’ve studied piano just as long, and I still can’t play ‘Mary Had a Little Lamb,’ “ replied Shoemaker.

No one laughed.

Frost continued his briefing. The Vietnamese seemed completely unprepared. Their defenses were situated in the northeastern portion of the country, where China had attacked in the 1970s.

The questions that followed made it clear that even if the U.S. was in a position to stop the invasion, the chiefs would be less than unanimous in support of it. They didn’t want to reward the Chinese, but Greene sensed that they would be only halfheartedly in favor of sanctions. There was more lingering resentment against the Vietnamese than he’d expected. And more admiration of the Chinese.

But he was the one making the decisions.

“I want a military plan to go with UN sanctions, if there’s an invasion,” he told them when the conversation died. “I want something with teeth. I want options.”

“They’re very limited, sir,” said Shoemaker.

“Let’s not decide that before we’ve examined it carefully.”

“Mr. President, stopping China — it’s just not possible,” said Fisk. “If they invade, we can’t stop them. And helping the Vietnamese will only make us look weaker in their eyes.”

“And why should we?” asked Washington. “We don’t owe the Vietnamese anything. Absolutely nothing.”

Washington had lost his father in the Vietnam War. But he spoke for most Americans.

“We don’t owe them anything, that’s true,” said Greene. “But this isn’t about them. We must be prepared for the worst, and we have to do what’s right.”

11

To Lieutenant Jing Yo, the Chinese army seemed both fitful and petulant, often harsh, and even, at times, maddeningly paranoid. But it could be benevolent and even generous as well — was not the breakfast it was issuing to him this morning an emperor’s feast? Hard-boiled eggs, a large piece of bread, fresh cheese, two apples — a poor man in the countryside could live a week on such a meal.

The cook had apologized that there was no rice. He had done the same the day before — and the day before that, and the week before that. The apology had become a pro forma ritual, repeated every morning. Rice was an incredibly expensive commodity, far too precious to be given to common soldiers in the field — let alone soldiers who’d been assigned to a dangerous mission outside the country and might never return.

Jing Yo couldn’t remember the last time he had had rice, except when visiting Beijing. China without rice — the very notion seemed impossible. And yet it was now a fact of life.

“Lieutenant, you are lingering when there is work to be done,” said Colonel Sun behind him.

Jing Yo rose silently, leaving his half-finished meal on his plate.

“The matter last night?” said the colonel.

“Completed.”

“Good. You believe there are others?”

“Certainly.”

A dozen different regular army companies, most without direct supervision, were operating in the area, securing it or preparing for the mission. The troops had been taught to hate all enemies, but especially the Vietnamese, considered a mongrel race.

Sun frowned. He did not harbor any particular compassion toward the Vietnamese; his concern was only for the operation.

“Further steps?” asked the colonel, in a tone that sounded like a warning.

Jing Yo considered how to answer. There really was no easy way to deal with the problem, short of recalling all of the troops, and that wasn’t going to happen.

“I believe the general’s order will be sufficient,” he said finally.

Sufficient to prevent further massacres? Or to cover up those that had already occurred but not been seen by Sun?

Most likely the latter rather than the former, but Sun did not ask for elaboration.

“Finish here. Then move on,” said the colonel. “I must return to the task force. You deal with division and the staff there as necessary. If there are further problems, report to me.”

Jing Yo bowed his head, and turned to go to work. As he walked down the path from the mess area, he fixed his gaze on the far hill. They held the hill, as well as the one beyond it to the east. There were a few scattered Hmong settlements in the valley, but otherwise no Vietnamese.

At least not alive.

The sun bathed the jungle in bright golden light. Jing Yo followed the path downward, leaning slightly to keep his center of gravity positioned properly. Though not trying to be quiet, he walked so silently by habit that he surprised Sergeant Wu, who was leaning against a tree lighting a cigarette instead of supervising a nearby work detail. Wu, the commando platoon sergeant, wore the look of mild disdain typical of commando noncoms, but otherwise would not have fit the stereotype — he was on the short side, a little heavy. His chin was in need of a shave. Unlike most commandos, he had been born in Shanghai, the son of a relatively well-off father and mother whom he never spoke of or to.

Wu’s service record, on the other hand, was the envy of the regiment; he had been in Malaysia, though not at the same time or place as Jing Yo.

“Sergeant,” said Jing Yo, nodding as he stopped.

“Have a good breakfast, Lieutenant?”

Jing Yo ignored the question, and its implied criticism of the privileges an officer was afforded. The enlisted men were issued only two meals a day — a small roll in the morning, and a bigger one at evening. Sometimes meat was added.

“So, Sergeant Fan is no longer with us?” asked Wu.

“The sergeant had difficulty following orders,” said Jing Yo.

Wu was not a friend of Sergeant Fan’s — in fact, Jing Yo suspected he could not stand the other commando. Another man in his position might have said something flattering to Jing Yo, earning easy points at his enemy’s expense. But Wu was not like that. If anything, Jing Yo suspected his opinion of Fan had changed because of his conflict with his commander.

“Have the things from the science camp been gathered?” Jing Yo asked.

“They’ve already started to bury them.”

“Bury them?”

“Captain Ching said Colonel Sun wanted his people to get rid of them. I sent Po and Ai Gua down to watch the donkeys and make sure they get it right.”

“Did I tell you to bury them?”

Wu pursed his lips. Shaking his head, Jing Yo started away, jogging a few steps before breaking into a run.

Privates Po and Ai Gua were about a hundred meters away, watching as a pair of regular army soldiers dug a trench on a flat rift in the hill. They had not gotten very far; the dirt was filled with roots and stones. The items from the camp they had overrun the night before, including the clothes the dead men had been wearing, were piled on the other side of the dirt.

“Help me with this,” he told Po and Ai Gua. “Look through the clothes. See if there’s information that will be of use.”

The two privates went to the clothes and began rifling through them. Jing Yo looked at the soldiers who were digging the ditch.

“You’d be better off putting the dirt on that side there,” he said, pointing. “It will be easier for you to push these things in. You won’t have to climb over the rocks and soil.”

The men looked at him as if he had just described the formula for solving binomial equations. They nodded, then went back to work.

Jing Yo walked to the pile of equipment and began looking through it. Colonel Sun had considered salvaging the gear and selling it in Shanghai. But Jing Yo had pointed out that the equipment was bound to be traceable, and if it ever turned up on the world market — something almost sure to happen if it was sold in Shanghai — very possibly their mission would be compromised. The colonel’s face had shaded pale, and he had quickly agreed it should be buried with the rest of the remains from the camp.

There were several boxes of instruments, most of which could be only vaguely identified. The expedition had been gathering soil and vegetation samples, and had placed a number of rain gauges near their camp. The documents on their laptop computers — none protected by passwords — indicated that they were studying changes in the climate and local plant and animal life.

“Hey, Lieutenant, look at this,” said Private Ai Gua, holding up a satellite phone. “It was in a pocket.”

Jing Yo walked over and took the phone. They had found three the night before; all had already been crushed.

“Why did we miss this?” he asked.

“We didn’t miss it,” said Sergeant Wu, answering before Ai Gua could open his mouth. Jing Yo turned to him. Wu’s cigarette had been replaced by a smug look Jing Yo associated with most veteran commando non-coms, who generally felt superior to any officer they served under. “The donkeys searched the tents.”

“We should have searched them ourselves,” said Jing Yo.

Wu scowled. It was obvious what he was thinking: they couldn’t be everywhere, or do everything that needed to be done.

Jing Yo turned on the phone. Like the others, it required a PIN. He tried a punching a few buttons in sequence — 0-0-0-0, 1-2-3-4, 9-8-7-6 — before getting a message saying he was locked out for too many failed ID attempts. Disgusted, he held the phone in his hands and snapped it in two.

Ai Gua whistled. Wu tried to hide his surprise with a frown.

The phone was small and well constructed, but snapping it in two was merely a matter of leverage, a parlor trick as far as Jing Yo was concerned. Any of the novices who had trained with the monks could have done the same in their sixth month there.

“Make sure the clothes are checked carefully,” Jing Yo said. “If there are any more phones, they must be destroyed before being buried. Anything with an identity must be burned.”

Jing Yo walked to the pile himself and began sorting through the things patiently, holding each piece for a moment as he considered what it told him before putting it aside.

Trousers — a fat, short man. Thick fabric — a man of reasonable means. Frayed at the heel — a man who held on to comfortable clothing, possibly out of frugality, but more likely out of habit.

“Are you looking for a new wardrobe?” asked Sergeant Wu behind him.

“If you want to know a man, start with his tailor, then go to his laundress,” said Jing Yo.

It was a maxim one of his teachers had taught him, but Wu thought it was a joke and laughed. Jing Yo continued sorting through the pile. Each item varied from the others as its owners had varied in life, and yet they told a single story: Westerners, men of learning, trying to understand something in a country foreign to them.

It was regrettable that they had had to die. But at least their deaths had been swift.

The clothes told more. The scientists were well off, able to afford sturdy wear. They were also relatively well fed, thicker around the waist than even the older officers in the army.

So what the premier said in his speeches was true — the West was hoarding the planet’s food, depriving China and the rest of the world of its share. Jing Yo regretted the deaths a little less.

“Something wrong, Lieutenant?” asked Private Ai Gua.

“Maybe he saw a ghost,” said Sergeant Wu, laughing.

Neither private joined in. Both men, Jing Yo knew, were deeply superstitious.

“The Westerners are enjoying the fruit of our labors,” he told them. “They do not have to struggle as we do for food. This war will restore balance and equity. Bury everything well.”

12

The huts had dried meat and some stores of vegetables, but the only food Josh trusted was the potatoes. He considered cooking them, but dismissed the idea as too dangerous. They tasted horrible raw, but he ate them anyway, devouring them as he walked up a path that started at the field above the hamlet and cut north, paralleling the road at the valley’s base. Going north made the most sense, he reasoned, because there would be soldiers at the border with China who would be able to help him. The border was only a few miles away, a day or at most two of walking.

The winding trail moved in and out of the jungle, cutting back against the slope as it went. Josh thought he would find a vantage at the top where he could look out over the surrounding countryside and get his bearings, but he was disappointed; the hill was dwarfed by its neighbors on all sides except the east, and there the trees were too narrow to support him as he climbed. After a few minutes, he couldn’t even see down to the village, let alone the road below.

Josh found another path heading east at the top of the hill. As he began down it, a large animal darted to the left, running through the trees into a small meadow about twenty yards from the path. He followed, thinking the animal was part of a grazing flock, maybe a small oxen or goat. Josh stepped warily, slipping among the trees as he got close to the field. There were three animals, about the size of deer though fatter, and with straight horns like goats might have — saolas, or Vu Quang oxen, native to northern Vietnam.

They looked at him warily, certainly aware that he was there, but apparently not afraid of him. When at last he rose and took a step from the woods, they darted away.

Back on the trail, Josh began thinking of the others on the expedition. He hadn’t known any of them for very long, but now they seemed like close friends. He thought of Ross, and Millie, the girl who was helping Dr. Renaldo. Fleming, the Belgian with the loud laugh. Phillip, a Chinese-American who preferred Scotch to beer and had taught him several Chinese curse words during a long night at a bar while trying to prove his point.

Dr. Renaldo himself, slightly cantankerous, especially in the morning before his third coffee — he always had four — yet generous to a fault.

All dead.

Grief rose in his chest, a physical thing, pain that eroded his bones and pricked at the underside of his skin.

How can I go on without them?

It was his parents he thought of, not the other scientists. He was a child again, afraid without his mother and father, alone.

No time for grief. Time for action. Move.

The pain was so intense Josh had to stop for a moment. He forced himself to move again, stopped, felt tears streaming down his cheeks.

I’ve gone through this already, he told himself. I will survive.

He tried to distract himself by repeating the facts he knew about Vietnam’s weather. He recounted, by rote, the average rainfall, and high and low temperatures of each month. He considered what the consequences of these were, as if he were delivering a lecture or discussing the matter with his doctoral advisers.

Sometime in late afternoon, with the sun sinking below the hills, Josh heard a helicopter. The sound shoved his thoughts about science away. His first reaction was to hide: he plunged into the jungle beyond the road, taking cover between the trees.

As he crouched against a trunk, he realized that hiding was not the thing to do. On the contrary, whoever was in the helicopter would probably help him, perhaps even fly him to safety. But he stayed back.

His sense of danger increased as the rotor of the chopper pounded heavier and heavier toward him. Finally it appeared, streaking down from the north, a long, dark machine, with a black cockpit and a thick tail. Missiles were stacked beneath the stubby wings, and a large round disk sat atop the rotor. To Josh, the aircraft looked like an American Apache, with a gun hanging beneath its pointed nose. But a star was painted in dull red on the side of the fuselage, faint but still visible to the naked eye.

The chopper skimmed so close to the trees that Josh thought it was going to crash. It thundered past, shaking the ground for more than a minute.

The path looped out of the trees onto a ridge. As he walked along it, Josh could see across to the hills on the other side. He continued a little farther and saw the road below — the same road I was on earlier, he thought, though of course now he was several miles farther north.

He could also see a faint glow in the distance where the road curved into the hills.

A village.

He wanted to run, but the glow was too far away to make that worthwhile. Instead, Josh picked up his pace, moving quickly, trying not to get too anxious.

His pants began to sag at his waist. He put his hands in the loops and held them as he went.

The path looped back into the jungle. The sun had gone below the ridge, and the ground before him was gray, filled with shadows. Josh kept moving, bending forward a bit and rehearsing his small store of Vietnamese.

The jungle became darker with each step, until finally he couldn’t see more than a few feet in front of him. The winding lane dipped to the left, then climbed so sharply that Josh had to use his hands to help him scramble upward. Finally it leveled out, and the thick jungle canopy gave way to a purple-blue sky. Once again, Josh picked up his pace, moving along the edge of the trail as it skimmed yet another ridge.

A highway came into view down to his left. Nearly straight ahead, about a half mile away, he spotted a double fence topped by barbed wire. Lights played on the fence, cutting through the growing shadows.

It was the Chinese border.

13

Another American arriving at Noi Bai Airport outside Hanoi might have noted the irony of the terminal’s westernization in the decades since the end of the war. But Mara Duncan was too focused on her mission. Clearing customs — she was traveling on a regular passport, in keeping with her journalist cover — she walked through the relatively small terminal to the taxi queue. The cab was a brand-new Indian-made REVA, the recently introduced four-door hatchback model of the Standard, an electric car. It was eerily silent as it pulled away from the airport terminal building; only when they reached the highway and the driver floored it did she hear any noise, a high-pitched flutter that sounded more like an overachieving fan than the motor of a car.

Hanoi had grown over the past several years, but compared to Bangkok it looked like a sleepy Asian backwater, especially on the outskirts, where colonial-era buildings shouldered against plain-box new structures four and five stories high, with the occasional ancient historical building plopped incongruously in the middle. The traffic was not anywhere near as bad as elsewhere in Asia, but it still took nearly an hour on the two-lane highway for the taxi to reach center city, where her hotel was. She’d been booked into a new hotel called the Star; rising on the ashes of several much humbler structures, it boasted fifteen stories and a white stone facade turned turquoise by the evening light. Mara paid the driver and went inside.

They gave her a suite with a king-sized bed and a soaking tub lined with tiny bottles of perfumed oil. The bath looked tempting, but she was on too tight a schedule; there was barely enough time to check the room for bugs before going out.

Sure enough, she found a device embedded in one of the lamps in the sitting room, where it ran off current from the wall. It also appeared to use the electrical circuit to send its signal. While Mara hadn’t encountered the specific device before, she had considerable experience with other members of its family.

The bug didn’t mean that the Vietnamese security apparatus had taken an interest in her specifically, much less that it suspected she was with the CIA. Industrial espionage was a growth industry in Asia, routinely practiced by a number of governments, including several with long historic ties to the U.S. Data was mined and then offered to various customers; while local businesses were generally favored, selling information to overseas competitors was usually more lucrative.

Mara left the bug in place — removing it would only arouse her eavesdroppers’ interest. She changed her clothes and went down to get a cyclo to take her to her appointment.

Cyclos were a kind of bicycle with a cushioned passenger seat at the front. They were popular with tourists, who tended to view them as an exotic touch in a place that was rapidly becoming a lot like the rest of the world. Mara liked them because they made it easier for her to see what was around her — and whether she was being followed or not.

As she stepped toward the curb, the driver looked at her face and gave her clothes a quick glance. Deducing that she was an American, he addressed her in broken English.

“Lady, I take you where you want. Best travel. Where you go?”

“Alfresco,” she told him, naming a well-known tourist restaurant in the center of the city. “You know it?”

“Restaurant. Very nice.”

“How much?”

“Ten U.S. dollar.”

“You think I’m rich?”

“Five dollar.”

“Two hundred dong,” she said, naming a price that worked out to about fifty cents at the current exchange rate. They went back and forth for a while more before settling on five hundred dong.

It was a little lower than the going rate, but the driver didn’t seem offended by her hard if good-natured bargaining.

“Good, good, very good,” he clucked, putting his foot to the pedal and nudging the cyclo gently toward her as she turned to sit.

After Bangkok, Hanoi’s seventy-degree evening seemed cool, even to Mara, who’d been raised in Wisconsin winters. She curled her arms around her chest, keeping warm while she glanced around the street the way she imagined a journalist would: perpetually curious, fascinated by everything. A cluster of Western travelers caught her eye — two families, one with a pair of small children, the other with a young teenager. The little kids were cute, even with the fatigue showing on their faces.

Mara felt a pang of jealousy, and for just a moment wanted to push her life along, move ahead in her career to the time when contemplating a family was not impossible.

The idea evaporated as the cyclo turned the corner, sliding into a knot of traffic. She came back to the present, focusing on the task at hand.

She got out of the cyclo a few yards from the front of the restaurant. After a few steps toward Alfresco she stopped, turning as if she had forgotten something, though really she was checking to see if she’d been followed.

It didn’t seem as if she had. Even so, Mara moved back into the shadows near the building, surveying the people around her — almost exclusively tourists. None seemed to notice her, or make too much of a deal out of not noticing her. She made a U-turn and walked to the end of the block, then turned the corner before doubling back. She saw an empty cab and trotted toward it, flagging it down.

“Old City,” she told the driver, getting in. “Okay?”

“Okay, lady.”

The restaurant where she was to meet the scientist was in the Old Quarter, the center of the city. Called Massalli, it had been open for several years and served Mediterranean cuisine. One of its best features was its wine list; knowing the Belgian was something of a connoisseur, Mara made sure to get the list after she was shown to the table.

She took a travel guide for Angkor Wat — the ancient capital of Cambodia — from her purse and laid it on the table, angling it so a passerby could easily spot it from across the room. The guide was unusual, but not so out of place that it would call too much attention to her; the scientist would look for it as an initial recognition symbol. Mara, of course, had studied his picture and would know who he was when he asked if she was going there.

She glanced at her watch. She’d aimed to be there a half hour early; she’d made it with five minutes to spare. She ordered a bottle of water, and began thumbing through the book, pausing every so often to scan the crowd.

An hour later, she was still waiting. None of the dozen or so diners, all Westerners, looked remotely like the scientist.

Mara ordered some dinner, then took out her cell phone and called the hotel where the scientist was supposed to be staying. He hadn’t checked in.

That didn’t necessarily mean anything bad. He was coming a considerable distance from the northwestern jungles, and might not consider a meeting with a CIA officer his top priority. But she didn’t like it. Deciding the restaurant might be a little too crowded for a detailed discussion, she left her napkin on the chair and got up, walking to the hall where the restroom was. Spotting a door to the side alley, she went over and stepped outside. Except for some neatly stacked wooden boxes and several steel garbage cans, the alley was empty. Mara tried to ignore the smell as she dialed his sat phone from hers.

She got his voice mail service.

“Missed you for dinner,” she said cheerfully, not giving her name. “Hope to see you for cocktails.”

Back inside, Mara ate slowly, then nursed a Saigon beer. Two and a half hours after she was to have met the scientist, she paid her bill and went to the bar. It was a small, narrow room between the dining area and the entrance, and very crowded. Everyone, even the bartender, was a foreigner. Mara ordered a beer and stood near the door, considering what to do next.

Was the scientist in trouble? Had the Vietnamese or even the Chinese figured out he was in the agency’s employ? Or was he just being a scientist, with many other things on his mind?

Maybe he’d gotten cold feet. Maybe he’d decided meeting with her was too dangerous.

Maybe, maybe, maybe.

The bartender came over and leaned over the counter, smiling. Two Australians wanted to buy her a drink. Mara let them. One was cute — about her age, tall, with a soccer player’s slim body. He had a two- or three-day beard that softened the hard lines of his chin. His friend, shorter, rounder, did most of the talking. They were techies, installing some sort of machine in a factory at the outskirts of town. Lonely, obviously, and a bit drunk. She flirted with them while waiting to see if Fleming might show up after all.

Mara managed to sip her beer so slowly she still had half a glass when the bartender signaled last call an hour later.

“We can continue this party down the street,” suggested the shorter Aussie.

Mara glanced at his friend, who smiled shyly.

“Be fun,” he said.

“I don’t think so. Thanks though,” she said. “Too much work in the morning.”

She touched his hand, then walked out with them, let them hail her a cab. A small part of her wondered if they were spies as well, but she’d already dismissed the possibility; something about the way they held themselves told her they were civilians. It had nothing to do with the short man’s talkativeness, or the taller man’s shyness. They lacked the coiled, just barely contained intensity that a covert agent or spy needed to survive.

Just in case she was wrong, she changed cabs at a second hotel before going to Hien Lam, where the scientist was supposed to be staying. Hien Lam was popular with Asians in Hanoi on business. Though the building dated from the early 1950s, it had recently been renovated to modern Western standards. Gleaming glass and polished aluminum walls greeted Mara as she entered the lobby. There was a video camera watching at the desk, and Mara decided she didn’t care to have her face attached to the scientist’s name. So she slipped into the lounge at the right to try another call.

The mostly male crowd raised quite a din as they struggled to converse over the music, but neither conversation nor the music was the attraction. Two girls in strategically applied pasties writhed on platforms at either end of the bar, wiggling their surgically enhanced body parts at the crowd. Such a display would have been unheard of in Hanoi a decade before, but apparently was an accepted by-product of the latest push to entice business to the country.

Mara slipped through the crowd. There were only two empty tables; both were far removed from the stage. She took one. No less than a minute later a man came over and asked if he could sit down. He was middle-aged, Japanese, overly polite and slightly nervous.

“You can sit down if you want,” she told him in English.

“Thank you.”

“I’m waiting for a friend,” she told him as he pulled out the chair. A look of disappointment crossed his face. “But he’s late, and I don’t have a cell phone. Do you mind if I borrow yours?”

He handed it over. Mara had come to Hanoi with a mobile as well as a sat phone. She also had two untraceable SIM cards that would allow her to give the cell phone a new number and account. But why burn a clean SIM card when a phone with a perfectly innocent pedigree could be had for the asking?

She called the hotel; Fleming still hadn’t checked in. He didn’t answer the sat phone either.

She started slipping the phone into her purse. The businessman stopped her.

“My phone.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” she said. “I thought it was mine. I’d forgotten. I’m so used to having one.”

Her attempted theft was the last straw for the man, who after a shallow nod excused himself and left. Mara waited a minute, then got up and went to the bar, sidling in near a man who’d left his wallet and cell phone next to his drink. He glanced at her, then turned his attention back to the girl writhing on the stage nearby. A minute later, she was outside the hotel, his cell phone in hand.

Mara found a quiet lobby in the hotel across the street, then used the man’s phone to call every hotel in the Hanoi tourist guide. Fleming hadn’t checked into any of them.

Returning to the girlie lounge across the street, she couldn’t find the man whose phone she’d stolen.

“I believe one of your customers left this,” she told one of the bartenders, holding up the phone. “I found it on the floor beneath the stool.”

By now it was after two. Mara’s check-in with Thailand was well overdue. She walked several blocks before finding a minihotel off an alley. So-called minihotels were small budget hotels that generally catered to backpackers and other budget travelers, something like a Vietnam version of Motel 6, without the cute advertising or free soap. The clerk, a sleepy-eyed young man barely out of his teens, yawned interminably, then asked for her passport to make a copy — standard procedure in Vietnam.

“I have a copy already,” said Mara, producing one from her bag.

This, too, was common procedure; the clerk took it without checking against her actual passport, which had a different number and name.

“Do you have other Western guests?” she asked as he fished the key from its cubby behind him.

“A few.”

“A friend of mine sometimes stays here. He’s Belgian.”

The clerk began shaking his head even before she gave him the name or his country. “No Belgium, no.”

“He might seem French.”

“Don’t know. Your bag?”

“The airline lost it. I have to pick it up in the morning.”

The clerk’s expression made it clear he didn’t believe her. Mara shrugged.

“That’s what they told me,” she said.

“Maybe it will come.”

The room was smaller than even the bathroom at the Star, but it was clean, and the bed had fresh sheets. Mara checked for bugs. When she didn’t find any, she sat in the creaky wooden chair and took out her sat phone.

To her surprise, Jesse DeBiase, the Million Dollar Man, picked up. “Well, hello, darling,” he answered her. “About time you checked in.”

“I was looking for the duty officer.”

“Found him.”

“This late?”

“I’m a night owl.”

“You’re doing real work for a change?”

“Will wonders never cease? I expect pigs to be flying next,” he said. “Actually, I’m listenin’ to Charlie Daniels,” he added conspiratorially. “He’s gonna fiddle with the devil at the crossroads for his soul.”

“There’s a contest you’d win.”

“You assume I have a soul he’d be interested in. So how is Mr. Fleming?”

“Didn’t show.”

“Hmmmm.”

“ ‘Hmmmm’ as in something? Or are you humming a song with Charlie?”

“Neither one. Listen, darling, something may be going on.” The Million Dollar Man’s voice shifted slightly; though his tone was still light, Mara knew he was suddenly much more serious. “We’ve heard reports that the Vietnamese are testing the Chinese borders.”

“What?”

“Doesn’t make any sense,” added DeBiase quickly. “But the rumors are flying. Several of our people in Beijing have heard it.”

“Beijing?”

“Something to be aware of. You haven’t heard anything?”

“Not a peep.”

DeBiase was silent for a moment. Talking to the scientist was now ten times more important than it had been that morning; Mara worried that they would decide to send someone more experienced to deal with him. Not better — just more experienced. That’s how Lucas would put it.

“Are you staying at the Star?” said DeBiase finally.

“I am. I’m not calling from there, though. The room is bugged.”

“Of course. Make sure we can contact you.”

“Obviously.” She felt a surge of relief — she wasn’t going to be replaced. At least not yet.

“Don’t take any unnecessary risks, darling,” DeBiase added. “Stay close to the hotel. I wouldn’t want you getting hurt. There’d be no one left to enjoy my coffee.”

“You’re sweet.”

“Not really. I’m a lecherous old man. But harmless, at least until my hernia is fixed.”

They both laughed uneasily, then hung up.

14

Josh’s first impulse was to tear through the jungle straight at the border, but in the dark that would be foolish. Much of the land close to the fence was mined — he could easily blow himself up in the dark. Besides, he didn’t want to climb the fence; he wanted to find someone near it who could help him, soldiers or a customs official. They’d be near the road.

He took a few steps sideways along the trail, keeping the fence in view, until finally he couldn’t see it. Turning and walking properly, he followed the path as it swung across a cleft in the mountain and met a narrow and uneven ancient road. Though used by traders and travelers for millennia, the roadbed had never been paved, and over the last forty or fifty years had seen less and less traffic. The hard-packed dirt and rocks had nonetheless successfully held off the jungle, trees and brush clustering at its edges but getting no farther.

As Josh began walking along the road, he heard a chain saw start up and buzz in the distance. The sound baffled him: who would be using a chain saw after dark?

There were dozens, if not hundreds, of potential answers, but before he could think of any, the road before him began to glow with approaching headlights. Josh stepped to the middle of the road, but as the lights grew stronger he remembered how he had blundered dangerously into the village. Rather than taking a chance on the truck, he decided to stick with his original plan of looking for a border guard, and so he slipped back into the nearby woods.

The lights grew stronger. So did the noise of the truck’s engine. There was more than one; he could hear at least three or four, maybe many more.

They seemed to take forever to arrive. The first plodded along at barely five miles an hour, going so slowly that Josh felt as if he were watching a slow-motion replay of reality. The second followed almost on the other’s bumper, without lights, its driver clunking the gears as he shifted to take the incline. Then came the third truck, and for the first time Josh noticed the yellow star on the door panel. They were military trucks — identical, in fact, to the trucks that had taken the scientific team out from Hanoi.

That couldn’t be, though — the trucks were coming from China; they must be Chinese.

But the insignia on the doors, the yellow star in a red field, was absolutely Vietnamese. China’s army used a red star. These had to be Vietnamese.

What would they be doing in China? And why didn’t they have their headlights on?

Twenty trucks passed, kicking up a cloud of thick dust in the night. Then the road was empty, and silence gradually returned to the countryside.

Jing Yo saw the headlights of the first truck as it wove down the old mountain trail roughly ten kilometers from the border. Immediately he felt a surge of anger — strict orders had been given for the vehicles to move south without using their lights.

The lieutenant could not let this pass by. He strode to the middle of the road and raised his arm as the vehicle approached.

The truck jerked to a stop so close to him that its bumper grazed his leg. Jing Yo walked around to the driver’s side, where a nervous private had rolled down the window. Like everyone else, including the commandos, he wore a Vietnamese army uniform, but was in fact Chinese.

“What are you doing?” Jing Yo asked the driver, keeping his voice even.

“Excuse me, Lieutenant.” Jing Yo’s ersatz uniform included his proper rank. “I didn’t see you in the shadows.”

“You should not have had your lights on. That was the order, was it not?”

The driver didn’t answer.

“Private — you should not have had your lights on,” repeated Jing Yo. “What is your explanation?”

“Without the lights, I would not have seen you at all.” The man’s voice cracked.

Without the lights, Jing Yo would not have been in the road. But explaining that was a waste of time. Jing grabbed hold of the door handle and pulled himself onto the running board. The driver recoiled.

“Turn off the lights, and drive on,” said Jing Yo.

He glanced at the line of trucks behind them, then tightened his grip as the driver put the vehicle in gear.

“There’s a switchback to the right in another ten meters,” Jing Yo warned the driver as they approached it. “The road drops sharply to the left. Be very careful.”

“Yes, Lieutenant. Thank you.”

The driver moved the truck so far to the right side of the lane that brush scraped against the fender, then lashed at Jing Yo’s side. He held on silently, concentrating on the view ahead. The moon was full and the sky clear, but even the comparatively light jungle canopy did a good job blocking out the light. Jing Yo strained to see.

Before he had begun to train at the monastery, Jing Yo had heard stories of monks who could see through blindfolds. Like much of what was said of Ch’an, the tales were apocryphal; the adepts were human, not gods. But a man could see many things others missed if he trained his eyes to observe, and his other senses to do their jobs well.

“Slow down,” Jing Yo told the driver. “The highway is just ahead.”

The truck jerked as the driver downshifted. Two of Jing Yo’s men — Privates Po and Ai Gua — stood on the highway, waiting.

“Halt!” yelled Po. He raised his rifle.

Jing Yo jumped off the running board as the truck ground to a halt, its brakes squealing as furiously as a stuck pig.

“Is there traffic on the road?” he asked Ai Gua.

The private grinned. “Nothing, Lieutenant.”

“Get in the cab and guide them up to the staging point,” Jing Yo told him. He looked over at Po. “Go to the tenth truck back,” he said. “Sit with them and guide them if they get lost. And make sure they don’t use their headlights.”

“They’d have to be imbeciles to be lost here,” mumbled Po, but he did as he was told.

Jing Yo walked to the highway. Sergeant Wu stood in the middle of the road with an unlit cigarette in his mouth. He was watching a signal light flashing from the scout team about a kilometer down the road.

“All clear,” said Wu. He took a lighter from his pocket and lit the cigarette.

Jing Yo waved the truck onto the road. It climbed up over the drainage ditch at the side, across the shoulder, and onto the macadam. The driver turned the wheel so hard as the tires reached the pavement that the truck tipped. For a moment it hung in midair, suspended. Then it flipped onto its side.

Jing Yo sprang into motion, running forward. Wu, throwing the cigarette from his mouth, was right behind.

Fearing the truck would burst into flames, Jing Yo jumped onto the frame and grabbed at the door handle. He pulled the door up on its hinges; Sergeant Wu grabbed it and held it open behind him. Jing Yo threw his hand against the roof and leaned inside, reaching to kill the engine. He got it off, then curled his head back, looking for the buckle on the driver’s seat belt so he could unhook it. But the man hadn’t been wearing the belt. The accident had thrown him across Private Ai Gua, who was wedged against the opposite window. Jing Yo turned himself around, draping his legs over the windshield, then reached down into the cab. He could smell gasoline.

“Take my hand,” he told the driver. “Hurry — before the truck catches fire. The explosives will blow us all up.”

The driver was in shock and didn’t react

“Come,” Jing Yo told him, leaning in farther. He grabbed the driver by the back of his shirt and raised him straight out, snatching him like an apple from the bottom of a barrel. He pushed him over to Wu, then reached back in for Ai Gua. The commando, still dazed, apparently didn’t remember that he had his seat belt on and flailed against it.

“The belt, Private,” said Jing Yo, reaching for the buckle. He unlocked it, and helped Ai Gua climb up over him, getting several bruises in the process. Then he pulled himself out of the truck and jumped down. Ai Gua was already staggering up the embankment to the road.

“You idiot! Months of preparation, ruined by your carelessness!” Sergeant Wu had pulled the driver away from the truck and begun berating him in the middle of the road. “You are an imbecile. I should shoot you right here.”

“I don’t disagree with your assessment of his intelligence,” Jing Yo told the sergeant. “But this is not the time to share it. And your solution is not useful.”

“He is an ass.”

“Very truly. We have to get these trucks past quickly.”

“The explosives!” said Sergeant Wu. “Shit.”

He left the driver and ran to the trucks stopped behind the one that had crashed, waving at the men who’d gotten out to see what was going on.

“Get back in your trucks!” yelled the sergeant. “Get going! Go, come on. Get on the highway! Quickly.”

The charges, rigged to make the vehicle look as if it had been destroyed in a firefight, were not yet connected to their detonators, and it was obvious to Jing Yo that they were safe — otherwise they would already have gone off. But he let Wu go.

“Are you all right?” he asked Ai Gua.

“Yes.”

The commando, a blank look on his face, held up his right wrist. Jing Yo took hold of the hand gently. Fixing his eyes on Ai Gua’s face, he began to squeeze the wrist, twisting slightly as he increased the pressure. Within a second or two, the private winced, though he did not call out.

A sprain, most likely. Not worth going back to Beijing for — especially since the injury would result in his being removed from the commando corps.

The second truck slipped past the rear wheels of the one that had flipped, the driver gingerly finding the road.

“Try not to use it,” Jing Yo told Ai Gua. “Go with the driver. Make sure he wears a seat belt.”

The private went to the truck without saying anything else.

They stopped the last truck to use it to right the crashed vehicle. Sergeant Wu rigged a chain to the rear axle, then stood back with Jing Yo as the driver maneuvered to give his vehicle a good foothold. The slight scent of an orange mingled with the harsher smells of sweat and cigarettes on Wu’s uniform. He mumbled something to himself as the truck started.

“Faster,” he said finally. “Move!”

The fallen truck rose back up about fifteen degrees before the wheels began to slide. Something from the side caught against the pavement and began to screech. The driver in the vehicle with the tow line jammed on his brakes. The truck yawed to the side, the upper frame bending under its own weight.

“He should have jammed the pedal, not stopped,” said Sergeant Wu disgustedly. “These drivers know nothing.”

Jing Yo walked over to the truck, straining against the chain. Something clicked — Jing Yo sprang back just in time as one of the links gave way and the truck fell back over.

“Let’s try this again,” said Jing Yo.

They needed to attach the chain to a higher spot. The only thing strong enough looked like the A-pillar at the side of the windshield. Coiling his leg on the bumper, Jing Yo hopped up to the roof of the truck; there, he composed himself for a moment before whirling down to the hood, kicking out the windshield in the process. He cleared the glass — it was bound by a layer of plastic, and came off in a panel — then took the chain from Sergeant Wu and tightened it around the pillar.

“One more thing,” he said to Wu. “Help me with the tree trunk.”

Jing Yo had seen the trunk on the ground earlier. About a half meter in diameter and nearly two meters long, it was heavy and difficult to carry between them. Wu told him he needed to let go and rest when they reached the road.

“We’ll just roll it from here,” said Jing Yo, and they let it drop.

Jing Yo rigged the tree at the corner of the rear wheel, hoping to use it as an anchor or fulcrum, fixing the lower half of the vehicle in place so it could be pulled upward. It was only partly successful — the vehicle dragged against the pavement as the other tugged. Still, the truck began to tilt.

“Go!” Sergeant Wu said to the driver. “Give it gas.”

The driver did — but too much. His motor stalled. The vehicles strained against each other, as if playing tug-of-war.

“I’ll do it,” said Wu, his disgust as evident as his impatience. He climbed up into the cab, shoving the driver aside. After starting the engine, he gunned the truck forward, then jammed on the brakes. The other truck jerked back onto its tires.

“See if it will start,” Jing Yo told the driver who’d crashed it originally.

Until now, the man had stood, frozen and silent, at the side of the road where Sergeant Wu had left him earlier. Now, sensing that he might win a reprieve, he sprang forward. Inside the cab, he pumped the gas a few times, then turned the engine over. It whined, but didn’t start.

“You’re flooding it,” said Sergeant Wu.

“Private, relax,” said Jing Yo, walking to the cab. “Take your foot off the gas.”

“It always needs a pump.”

“You’ve pumped it plenty already, idiot,” said Sergeant Wu.

“Let it rest for a moment,” said Jing Yo calmly.

He waited for a full minute, staring at the driver the entire time. The man held his gaze for only a few seconds before turning away.

“Now try. Gently. Do not pump the gas.”

The engine caught, ran fitfully for a few moments, then suddenly backfired and gave up.

“Once more,” said Jing Yo.

The battery was starting to go. The starter whined as it tried moving the pistons without the proper voltage behind it.

“Now you can pump it,” said Jing Yo. “A single tap.”

Once again the engine caught, this time solidly. The driver revved it, not entirely trusting it to run on its own. Before Jing Yo could tell him to do so, he put the truck in gear and set off in the direction the others had taken. Sergeant Wu waved the other truck after him.

“Idiot peasants,” said Sergeant Wu. “They’ve never driven. But they’re the ones chosen to drive the trucks.”

“Which requires more skill, Sergeant? Combat, or driving a truck?” asked Jing Yo.

“Combat, of course.”

Jing Yo nodded. “And which is more difficult — fighting an enemy, or delivering supplies?”

“I can’t fight without bullets. But I get your point.”

Sergeant Wu reached into his pocket for his cigarettes. He shook the pack, then handed it toward Jing Yo. It was the first time he had ever offered one.

“Cigarette, Lieutenant?”

“No thank you.”

Wu lit up, then took a long drag from the cigarette. He released a cloud of smoke when he exhaled.

“Brave of you, running over to grab Ai Gua out,” said the sergeant. “Considering the way the trucks are rigged with explosives.”

“He is my soldier. He should expect nothing less.”

Sergeant Wu smiled, amused, though Jing Yo did not quite understand why. It was his duty, as an officer, to look out for his men the way a father would watch his sons.

He hadn’t thought of his duty at the moment, just understood it the same way his legs understood how to walk.

“What was that thing you did with your foot?” asked the sergeant. “On the windshield.”

“The kick? So we could rig it properly? The windshield won’t matter — it will be blown up in a few hours.”

“You’re all right, Lieutenant. You’re tougher than I thought. And not as stuck-up.”

Jing Yo walked over to the side of the road, examining the gouges in the earth. They would not mean anything to anyone, he decided, and could safely be left.

“Uh-oh,” said Wu, reading the signal from the lookout. A minute later, Private Po came running up the road.

“Truck coming,” he hissed. “Old pickup.”

“We’ll stop it,” said Jing Yo. “We want them alive.”

Jing Yo checked his uniform, then reached to his belt to undo the snap holding his pistol in its holster. Wu, rifle in hand, stood two meters away. Po trotted to the side of the road, taking up a position where he could cover the truck.

Headlights appeared in the distance. Jing Yo put up his hand.

The truck began to slow almost immediately. When he was sure it was going to stop, Jing Yo stepped to the side of the road and waited. The driver was a man of about fifty, thin, a wreath of white hair around his head. He reminded Jing Yo of the monks who had taught him as a young boy.

“Where are you going?” Jing Yo demanded in Vietnamese as the man rolled down his window.

“What is the army doing here?”

“We are on official business,” said Jing Yo. “Let me see your identification.”

The man frowned, then reached into his pocket. Sergeant Wu, meanwhile, appeared on the other side of the cab.

The man handed out an ID card folded around some papers. Jing Yo opened the card and unfolded the papers, looking at them first. Two were on official letterhead; a third was handwritten.

While the lieutenant had spent several months refining his spoken Vietnamese, his reading ability lagged, and he wasn’t sure precisely what the letters said. The man appeared to be a resident of Bo Sai, a village ten kilometers to the south.

Jing Yo knew it well: it was one of the checkpoints for tomorrow night’s advance by the main force.

“Why are you going north?” Jing Yo asked, folding the papers.

“As the doctor’s letter says. My great-aunt — ”

“I’m not interested in aunts, or in sob stories,” said Jing Yo sharply. “There is a curfew here. You are not to be driving.”

“A curfew?”

“Do you know that you are driving in the direction of China? Our enemy?”

The man tapped his fingers on the steering wheel, apparently a nervous habit.

“I’m not going to China,” he said. “My aunt lives with the hill people. She — ”

“Have you been over the border recently?” asked Jing Yo sharply.

“Never.”

“Have you been there in the last few days?”

“I told you. Never.”

Sergeant Wu pulled open the passenger door. For a moment, Jing Yo thought he was going to grab the man; then he realized he was only opening the glove compartment.

The man reached to stop him. Jing Yo grabbed his shoulder.

“Your business is with me,” Jing Yo said. “Why are you driving to China?”

“I am not going to China, comrade,” said the man. Finally, he was scared. The color drained from his face. His fingers, rather than tapping, were now dancing in a nervous tremor. “My aunt is very sick. She is important to our family. She — ”

“Nothing,” said Wu, snapping the glove compartment closed.

Wu’s Vietnamese was limited, but his accent and tones, especially in very short bursts, were excellent. His brooding manner was a perfect complement, signaling to any who heard him that it would be unwise to question him.

“I have nothing for you,” said the driver, turning back to Jing Yo. “But you must be hungry. There will be food in the village. It is just two kilometers ahead.”

“You are not going there tonight. Turn around and go back. Move now.”

“But — ”

“The army has closed the road. And it will be closed until further notice. Tell your friends and neighbors. But do it tomorrow. Tonight there is a curfew, and anyone who violates it will be shot.”

The man pushed the truck into reverse, then backed down the road about twenty meters before making a three-point turn.

“I knew you weren’t going to kill him,” said Sergeant Wu as the tail-lights disappeared around the bend. “Just like you wouldn’t have killed that man last night.”

“Why is that?” said Jing Yo coldly.

“Fan thought it was because you were a coward.”

Jing Yo couldn’t keep himself from smiling.

“But I see it has to do with your superstitions,” said Wu. “You’re not a coward, Lieutenant. I’m glad of that.”

“Which superstitions?”

“Religion, superstitions — it’s your kung fu, right? The dance with your leg.”

“Do you know a lot about kung fu, Sergeant?”

Sergeant Wu shook his head.

“I do not kill if it is unnecessary,” said Jing Yo. “Nor if the death does not serve some higher purpose. I let him go because he will serve us.”

“How does he help us?”

“He will tell everyone he meets tomorrow that he encountered Vietnamese soldiers on the highway leading to China. The word of a plain man is worth ten times the promise of a politician.”

Sergeant Wu nodded, and went to check on the men.

When he was positive that the trucks had gone without leaving stragglers or sentries, Josh pushed himself backward and sat in a little hollow amid the brush. What did the trucks mean? he asked himself. Vietnamese army trucks driving out of China, on a back road without their lights in the dead of night — why?

The two countries were not precisely enemies, but Josh knew from the precursory briefing the U.S. State Department envoy had given him before he left on the trip that they were certainly not friends. Even the two debates he’d witnessed at the UN, theoretically focused on allocating money for the scientific expedition he had joined, had made the tensions clear. Enmity between China and all of its neighbors, with the sometime exception of Russia, had grown exponentially since the dramatic upturn in global climate change.

Something was going on, or maybe there was more to the squabbling than met the eye.

Did this have anything to do with the massacres?

The questions were overwhelming. He couldn’t answer them. The important thing at the moment was that he didn’t know and couldn’t know what the situation was. And therefore, he couldn’t trust either the Vietnamese or the Chinese. He couldn’t trust anyone. He had to depend on himself.

That was the lesson he had learned as a child. He had to go into survival mode. No more panic — use logic to get himself out of this. Logic. A scientist’s tool.

Josh took a deep breath. He had to go south, away from the border, and away from the people who were after him. Eventually, he would find a village where he could find transportation. He would make his way to Hanoi, to the U.S. embassy.

Without help from the Vietnamese authorities. Maybe with no one’s help.

Plan made, he leaned to the side and rose, unfolding his frame upward. As the blood rushed from his head, he felt slightly faint. A by-product of hunger, he told himself — the potatoes had been less than nutritious.

Josh pushed the low bushes near the tree and stepped out into the dirt road. He could follow it, as long as he was careful. It was his only choice, really — walking in the jungle at night was difficult and time consuming, not to mention dangerous. And he had to travel at night, at least until he figured out what was going on.

He’d hide himself and sleep during the day.

For the first hour as he walked, Josh kept his mind busy by reviewing the route they’d taken to get to the camp, trying to remember different landmarks along the way. But it was difficult to do that while still paying attention to the road and nearby jungle. Eventually, his thoughts drifted away, and his mind filled with the details of what was around him, the smells, the sounds, the shadows of the trees rising on both sides of him, funneling him onward.

Fatigue settled against him in long, modulating waves; his thighs would feel battered for a while, and lifting them would be almost impossible. He would drag them through the dust for a hundred yards or so, until gradually the fatigue dissipated. They would seem lighter; within a few paces he would be walking normally again — not sprinting along by any means, but making steady progress. Then his shoulders would feel tired, and his eyes. The process would repeat, each part of him taking its own turn at being tired.

After about two hours, Josh’s left calf cramped terribly. He stopped and tried kneading it out with his hand, pressing his thumb firmly against the knot just below the muscle’s crown. But the cramp grew as if it were a contagious disease. His whole lower leg began to spasm, the muscles in his sole and arch freezing in a jagged tangle of pain.

He knew the cure — he simply had to relax his muscles and the pain would go away. But relaxing was the most difficult thing in the world to do just then; climbing Mount Everest barefoot and without oxygen would have been easier.

It was amazing how much pain the muscles managed to generate. His foot and leg felt as if they were tearing themselves in half. How much worse would it be if I’d been shot? Josh asked himself.

The question did nothing to help him relax. The despair he’d chased earlier began to creep back, stealing around him like a fog in late fall. He lowered himself to the ground, flat on his back at the side of the road, eyes closed, willing his muscles to loosen.

As he lay there, trying not to writhe, Josh heard a sound rising over the buzz and peep of the insects. It was a mechanical sound, an engine.

The trucks, he thought, farther ahead.

Then he heard something else, not mechanical, something moving at the edge of the road, sideswiping brush. It was only for a moment, but the sound put him back on alert, and gave his mind something else to concentrate on. Its subconscious grapple with his leg muscles eased ever so slightly; Josh held his breath and pushed himself off the road and back into the jungle.

Footsteps approached. Men were walking a few yards away, coming up the road, talking.

He lay in the bushes, trying not to breathe. The men continued by, walking north on the road about twenty more yards before stopping. They spoke in low whispers. Josh couldn’t have understood what they were saying in any event, but their voices gave him something to concentrate on. He listened as they turned and started walking back toward him, then past again.

They’d been gone a good seven or eight minutes before he sat back upright. He’d have to stay off the road, he decided, at least for a while. The jungle was comparatively sparse here, easier to move through than what he’d passed earlier in the day.

Though no longer cramped, his leg remained stiff as he slipped through the jungle, pushing the brush away branch by branch. He moved uphill, passing through a stand of waist-high ferns turned silver by the moonlight angling down through the gaps in the trees. Despite the slope, the ground was soggy; an underground stream pooled up nearby, running off toward the road.

The wet ground made a sucking noise as he lifted his boots. He had to walk ever slower to keep quiet.

Finally he managed to get beyond the pool, tracking almost due west, walking away from where he thought the road was. But soon the sounds of the trucks he’d heard were closer, straight ahead — the road, he realized as he stopped and listened, must join with the highway here.

There weren’t many highways in this part of Vietnam, and Josh thought this must be the same road the expedition had camped along. If that was true, he could simply follow it and find his way back. It would be a long journey, but doable.

The small burst of optimism faded quickly as he heard voices ahead. They were shouting and arguing.

Josh got down, hiding behind the trees. If it’s my time, he told himself, I won’t go like a coward. I won’t beg for my life.

A truck engine revved. There were more shouts. Then he heard vehicles moving away.

Finally, with the sound gone, the jungle seemed to move back in as it left, as though the insects and animals had been waiting for the humans to leave.

I’m safe now, Josh thought to himself. Whoever they were, they’re gone.

I’m safe now. For a little while at least.

That was the last conscious thought he had for several hours, as he slipped off to sleep while sitting against the trees.

15

Premier Cho Lai folded his arms. Vietnam lay before him, its lush, fertile valleys marked prominently on the large map spread over his desk.

Many centuries had passed since the land had been a Chinese kingdom. Soon it would be one again.

Vietnam’s oil, located mostly in the southern coastal waters, would be an immediate prize. Even more important were their rice paddies and fields, so lately favored by the weather. But what Cho Lai truly craved was the accomplishment of cutting down the haughty Vietnamese, leaving them groveling at his feet.

Just a month before, they had rejected the Chinese premier’s proposal of a mutual economic zone, an arrangement that, while tilted in China’s favor, would have been far better for them and their people than war.

Idiots.

Taking Vietnam would not be difficult. The army had studied the possibilities for years, modeling their present plan partly on America’s burst through Iraq in 2003.

The occupation, of course, would be different. The Americans had foolishly tried to use a light hand, where nothing but an iron fist would do the job. That, too, would be easy — anyone who did not like China’s benevolent rule could leave the country. As a corpse.

The trick would be keeping the rest of the world on his side long enough to at least prevent a military backlash. China’s investments in Europe, the Third World, and most especially the United States were a powerful argument for them not to interfere. But Cho Lai knew blackmail would not suffice. Weak as they were, the Westerners needed to feel as if they were doing the right thing.

Hence tonight’s operation. The world would soon be convinced, and remain convinced, that he was acting righteously.

And after that — Japan. Korea. The rest of Indochina. Malaysia would finally be dealt with openly. The Philippines. He’d leave Australia — it was a dowdy, useless country.

The deal Vietnam had rejected would be offered to each of them. They would see the wisdom of agreeing. Or be crushed. And then Cho Lai would be free to concentrate on his real goal: America.

There was a delicious irony in starting here, in Vietnam. He would succeed where the Americans had failed. It would be the first thing historians would notice when they wrote of his exploits in a thousand years.

The premier looked up from the map. His generals stared at him, waiting.

“Give the order to proceed,” he said. “And do it quickly, exactly as we have planned.”

16

Mara took a nap at the minihotel she’d, called Bangkok from, then went back to the Star to shower. As she toweled off she checked the TV and the Internet connection. There was nothing on China, and the only hint she could find on the Google News Asian page — heavily censored, not just in Vietnam but throughout Asia — was a story from China quoting the premier on “outside aggressors,” but not mentioning Vietnam specifically.

It was still too early to get breakfast at the Star buffet, or at any restaurant catering to foreigners for that matter. A few blocks from the hotel, Mara found a man with a small cart of breakfast items; better-off locals would stop there on their way to work.

She waited her turn amid the small cluster of men, smiling but politely insisting that they take their turn instead of letting her jump ahead. She wasn’t just being polite; she was mentally practicing her Vietnamese.

When it was finally her turn, she repeated what the man before her had ordered. Her pronunciation was a bit stiff, and when the man asked her to repeat what she wanted, Mara simply pointed. She got a piece of meat tucked into a half roll of freshly baked French bread.

The meat looked like chicken but tasted gamy, overwhelming the jamlike sweet sauce spread like mayonnaise around it. Maybe it hadn’t been her pronunciation that bothered the vendor, but her choice of food.

Mara walked halfway down the block, then dumped the meat into the gutter. Then she began looking for a taxi.

“Airport?” she asked when she finally flagged one down.

The man looked puzzled.

“San bay,“ she said in Vietnamese. “I need to go to the airport.”

“Yes, airport. I understand,” said the man, speaking in English. “But- bags?”

“I have business there,” she told him, getting in.

As they drove, Mara opened her pocketbook and took out one of the “clean” SIM cards she’d brought. She pried it into her cell phone and tried calling the scientist again. Once again she got his voice mail.

The UN agency that had sponsored the expedition was located in Brussels. Mara called the liaison officer there, claiming to be a relative trying to get in touch with the scientist. The man who answered had heard nothing from the expedition for more than two weeks. This wasn’t unusual, and he gave her the name and number of a Vietnamese government official who was supposed to be in contact with the scientists.

It was still two hours before the government offices would officially open, and though she tried the number, Mara wasn’t surprised when the official didn’t answer his phone. He didn’t have voice mail.

If Fleming was simply a day behind schedule, he’d expect to meet her at the restaurant tonight. In the meantime, she was going to go look for him — and see what was going on up near the Chinese border.

Assuming she could find a way to get up there. Driving would take too long. The distance itself wasn’t that far — roughly three hundred kilometers as the bird flew — but the roads were winding and notoriously bad; even with a skilled driver leaving at first light it could easily take all day just to go one way.

Flying was a much better option, but it was bound to be difficult. While Vietnam was no longer the strictly run authoritarian state it had once been, renting a plane or helicopter was still not an easy task. The first problem was language. Generally, this could be overcome by enough money, but while Mara practically cleared out an ATM inside the airport terminal, the thick wad of bills she flashed in front of the man inside the office of Pearl Air Surveying seemed only to confuse him.

“I’m looking for a scientific expedition,” she told him, speaking as slowly and as clearly as she could. “They may be in trouble. No one has heard from them. They’re west of Sapa.”

The man shook his head. “No fly.”

“Why?” she asked.

He shrugged instead of answering. If he’d been ordered not to by the Vietnamese, this would be an important piece of information — a possible confirmation of the Chinese charges.

“Please,” said Mara, pressing. “They may in great trouble. I need to get there. Isn’t this enough money?”

The man shrugged.

“Do you speak French?” she asked. “Parlez-vous français?”

Her own French wasn’t that good, and she felt almost relieved when he didn’t react to the words.

“Maybe Chinese?” Mara suggested.

“The problem isn’t the language.”

Mara turned around. A short, dark-skinned man dressed in mechanic’s coveralls leaned against the wall near the door, arms folded. “What’s the problem then?” she asked.

“Too far for a helicopter. At least any of the helicopters you could get here.”

“It’s only three hundred kilometers.”

“You have to factor in the altitude. And the linger time.”

“Can’t it refuel?”

“Not out there. There’s also the red tape.”

He pushed off from the wall and started speaking in Vietnamese to the man behind the desk. The other man responded in a quick, almost nervous voice, speaking so quickly that Mara had no chance to decipher what he said. She watched the mechanic talk — clearly he had some sort of solution in mind.

But he wasn’t going to share it in front of the other man.

“No,” he told her finally. “It’s not possible with these helicopters. The range is too far.”

“Where can I go to find one that has the proper range?” she asked. “You can’t.”

“I need to find them,” she insisted.

“How badly?”

“Badly.”

Their eyes met.

“Twenty thousand, U.S.”

Mara laughed. “Not that badly.”

The mechanic folded his arms.

“Five hundred dollars,” she said.

“Five hundred won’t even pay for the fuel.”

“It will pay for the aircraft as well as the fuel.”

“In your dreams. All you Americans think we’re stupid. The Vietnamese are poor, so they must be stupid.” The man’s English had a slightly British accent. Mara guessed it originated in Hong Kong.

“I don’t think that. But not all Americans are rich, as many Vietnamese seem to think,” she told him. “I can pay you five hundred. Plus fuel. With a card.”

“A thousand in cash. With fuel. Plus the landing fee and lunch.”

“And lunch. If we’re back in time.”

“We buy it and eat in the plane.”

The man’s name was Ky Kieu, and though he was Vietnamese, his grandfather had been an American soldier who abandoned his child — or probably never even knew he had one — after the war. Kieu’s father had grown up on the streets, but had managed to save enough money — Kieu didn’t say how — to send his son to Hong Kong and Australia, where he learned to fix airplanes.

Most important as far as Mara was concerned, he was a pilot and owned an aircraft — though not the type Mara thought.

“That’s not a helicopter,” she said when he led her out to the parking area beyond the passenger hangars.

“I explained that a helicopter hasn’t the range.”

“It’s a biplane.”

“So?”

“A biplane?”

“It can do just about anything you would want a helicopter to do, except hover. The fact that it’s a biplane makes it maneuverable. I can land on a road if I want. If you want to pick up your party, they’ll fit. And you’re unlikely to find another private aircraft in Hanoi. Your CIA friends generally have to travel to Saigon to lease one.”

Mara’s expression must have remained doubtful, since he added that there was no other way to get where she wanted to go except by truck.

“It’s sturdier than it looks,” he said, pounding his fist against the side of the aircraft. “It’s been around.”

The plane was a Chinese-made Yunshuji-5, a license-made copy of the Russian PZL Mielec An-2 Colt older than its owner. A fat engine sat at its nose, fronting a two-level, fully enclosed cabin. A dozen people could crowd into the passenger space, and the plane could carry roughly five thousand pounds, not quite in the range of a small, two-engined, commercial turboprop, but close.

The cockpit looked as if it hadn’t been altered since the day it rolled off the line. The black paint on the metal control panel had been worn down to steel gray in all but a few spots.

“How old is this plane?” Mara asked as she sat in the copilot’s seat.

“Age isn’t important.”

“Do you even have radar?”

“Would it make a difference? Sit for a minute. We have to taxi over for fuel. There’s a food stall behind the fuel farm where you can buy our lunch.”

The Colt vibrated like an unbalanced washing machine. Its engine missed badly on the way over to the fueling area.

“You sure this thing is going to make it?” Mara asked Kieu.

“It’s fine.”

“It’s running rough.”

“It always does in the morning.”

The pilot didn’t seem to be making a joke. Mara climbed down off the wing, nearly losing her balance because of the wash from the prop. She found the food stall behind an abandoned aircraft tug on the other side of the tank area. An irregular circle of white plastic picnic chairs circled a woman squatting between two large baskets and a pair of hibachi charcoal grills. The woman spoke no English, but Mara’s Vietnamese and a little bit of pointing did the job. She fished noodles from a pot, and what looked like potatoes from one of the baskets, placing them in a pair of boxes. Then she added some fried fish and a tangle of greens.

“Cha ca,“ said Kieu when she returned to the plane, which was still being fueled. “Good choice. We eat now. Maybe later we don’t have a chance.”

“Listen, for real — is this airplane going to make it?”

“Do you think I’d go if it didn’t? We don’t have parachutes. If you die, I die.”

The engine settled down with the full tank of fuel. It roared as Kieu brought it up to takeoff power, pushing from the patchwork concrete at the edge of the ramp to the main runway as soon as he got clearance. It rose immediately, the doubled wings eager to get into the air.

Sapa was a little less than three hundred kilometers away; the Colt cruised around 185 kilometers an hour, or roughly a hundred knots — the speed some planes landed at.

It looked like a handful to fly. The plane was unpressurized, but they stayed relatively low, skimming over the city, rice paddies, and eventually the jungle at a few hundred feet.

“When we get closer, you’ll need to wear the mask,” the pilot told her after they’d been in the air for a while. Kieu hadn’t given her a headset. He had to shout to make himself heard over the engine. “In the mountains. I’ll tell you when.”

“Is it safe?”

“Plenty safe. Just high. Even in the valleys.”

“All right.”

“So, why is the CIA interested in scientists?”

She’d let the first reference go as if she hadn’t heard it, but now felt compelled to reply.

“I’m not a spy. I’m a journalist. I’m doing a story on the expedition.”

Kieu laughed. “You expect me to believe that?”

“I don’t care what you believe,” said Mara.

“All Americans in Vietnam are spies,” said Kieu.

“You don’t honestly believe that.”

“The government does. And maybe I am a spy myself.”

“Maybe you are.”

People were always accusing Americans in Asia of being spies. Mara knew from experience that if she offered a reasonable alternative, most people would accept it at face value, repeating it to the authorities if asked. What they truly believed was another story, of course. For some, thinking that they were working with a spy was attractive — they liked the idea of danger, even if it was far removed from reality.

“What are these scientists doing? Looking for more oil?” asked Kieu.

“They’re studying climate change.”

“Ha! They should cool the sun if they want to be useful.”

“I’m sure they would if they could.”

“It’s always been hot in Vietnam. My grandfather sweated the minute he got off the plane, and he landed in December.”

“You’re in touch with your grandfather?”

“We’ve met. It’s always hot in Vietnam,” he repeated, changing the subject. “Today is very much like last year, and the year before.”

“The average daily temperature in Hanoi was three degrees hotter last year than it was five years ago,” she said. Though no expert on climate change, Mara had heard the statistics so many times she knew them by heart.

“Three degrees. Nothing.”

“That’s for the entire year. A change like that is huge. The changes in the extremes have been even more dramatic. And Vietnam is one of the lucky ones. The changes here haven’t been catastrophic. They’ve helped your country, on the whole.”

Kieu waved his hand. “The heat means nothing. Weather, that’s all.”

“You don’t think the climate has changed?”

“Nah. Superstition. Like the old people’s warts, and burning incense to pray for rain. It doesn’t pay to worry about things we can’t control,” he added. “Time to put the oxygen on.”

There were two large canisters, each with its own separate hose and mask. The flow tickled her nose and upper lip. Kieu showed her how to adjust it, easing the gas until it was almost natural.

Mara had marked out the camp’s location on a printed map, having transposed it from the satellite data Lucas had given her before she left. Kieu took the map from his clipboard, examining it closely.

“Very close to the border,” he said.

“You told me that before.”

“Still, very close to the border.”

“Problem?”

“Not today.”

A few minutes after they began using the oxygen, Kieu banked the aircraft over a road that cut along the bottom of a valley, paralleling what looked like a narrow stream. Ten minutes later, he turned sharply west, climbing up the side of the hill. The aircraft hugged the treetops; from Mara’s vantage it looked as if they were barely clearing the upper branches.

They flew slower and slower as they climbed, until finally it seemed as if they were standing still. Finally, Kieu pitched the nose down and they picked up so much speed so quickly that Mara’s stomach seemed to shoot into her mouth. Kieu stared intently out the front of the plane, holding the yoke tightly as they pitched down into another valley. He consulted the map again, frowned, then turned northward.

“Almost there,” he grunted.

Mara looked at the road below. From the air, it seemed to twist violently; she wondered if what he’d promised about being able to land was true.

“We’re within four or five klicks,” said Kieu. He pointed ahead. “The border is there somewhere, eight, ten kilometers from us. The camp should be on the right side, about midway down the wing as we come over.”

Mara reached below the seat for Kieu’s binoculars. They flew northward very slowly, following the road. As they approached the border — the fence itself was hard to see because of the jungle — the glare of a reflection hit her eyes.

She pulled the glasses up to get a look at the car or truck the light had reflected off. But instead of seeing one vehicle, she saw an entire line of them — troop transports, old ZiLs, the Vietnamese equivalent of American two-and-a-half-ton trucks. There were a dozen lined up on the road within spitting distance of the border checkpoint.

“What’s going on down there?”

“I don’t know. That’s weird.”

The terrain was rising to meet them, taking them gradually toward the vehicles. The pilot angled the plane to the right, flying toward the camp.

“It looks like there was a fire,” said Mara, adjusting the glasses. She could see a campsite, or maybe the remains of one, black blotches in a haphazard circle.

The trucks straddled the border area, some in China, some in Vietnam. Several had crashed into the fence. All seemed to have been destroyed or disabled.

Kieu banked northward again. Smoke rose from beyond the fence. A long gray cloud furrowed in a long line.

Not smoke — dust.

The troop movements.

“Get closer to the border,” Mara told Kieu as he turned south again. “Something is going on.”

“Something is very strange,” said Kieu. Then he said something in Vietnamese, a loud curse word.

As Mara turned to him, something rattled through the floorboard. It sounded like bolts springing upward. Only as the plane pitched on its wing did she realize it was a spray of bullets. They were under fire.

Worse. They’d been hit.