Shock of War

1

Zeus ran across the field toward the marsh and the bridge. His feet sloshed through the wet field, the water sucking at the soles of his boots. The rain felt like a hose, washing him down as he ran.

The storm intensified with every step. It was a blessing — it meant the Chinese would be trapped — but it was a curse as well, limiting the Vietnamese counterattack. And if they didn’t blow the final bridge right now, everything would be lost — the Chinese tanks would ford the first ravine and stay on the road past this low area, moving to Hai Phong despite the rain. The tanks would simply speed past any effort to stop them, and once in the harbor, the armored spearhead could wait for reinforcement, which would surely arrive as soon as the winds died down.

So they had to blow the bridge.

He heard a splash in front of him, then saw something moving on the ground. The first thing he thought was that it was an alligator. Then he saw an arm — Christian’s. He’d fallen.

Zeus grabbed his arm and pulled him upright.

“Goddamn rain,” complained Christian as he pulled away. “Come on.”

Zeus followed. The two tanks that had headed the column were now across the bridge, moving down the road. Zeus heard the rattle of a machine gun over the roar of the rising wind, but it was impossible to know if the gunfire was coming from the tanks or the Vietnamese.

Zeus cupped his hands over his eyes, trying to see through the rain. Someone was moving on the right side of the bridge. Assuming it was the Vietnamese soldier, he started in his direction. After only a step he slipped and fell facedown into the flooded marsh. The water pushed hard against his side. The rain was falling so hard that the marsh was becoming a stream, and an angry one at that.

It’d be a river before this was done.

A man was climbing along the steel understructure. Zeus made his way toward him. The water was already above his knees.

It was the Vietnamese engineer, checking the wire lines. He yelled something to Zeus. The wind carried his shout, but it was in Vietnamese, and Zeus had no idea what he was saying.

The steel beam that supported the bridge was just wide enough so he could put his knees on either side of the rise that split it. He began crawling upward, grasping the metal to steady himself against the wind. He found a wire running up the support and followed it to the charges.

“Got it! Got it!” Christian’s voice came on the wind, but Zeus couldn’t see him. And he had no idea what he meant.

The first charge was taped around the beam about a third of the way up. Zeus followed the wire to the posts. He tightened the screws though they were already hard against their stops, and moved on.

Zeus ducked down as the arch approached the underside of the bridge. A charge had been planted at the very peak, in the little triangular curve at the top of the arch. To reach it, Zeus had to lay down across the steel, the metal rib in his face and chest. He hugged the beam as the wind picked up, his fingers crawling across the charge as he attempted to find the connection posts. He found them. The wire seemed secure. He tightened the bolts, his fingers so slippery he couldn’t even tell if he was turning them or not.

The beam began to vibrate. Zeus let go of the charge and hugged the bridge, wrapping his legs as well as his arms around the metal. He thought it was the wind, gusting, then realized from the heavy, throaty sound that another tank was approaching… was, in fact, already on the bridge, driving above him.

And maybe another and another.

It was too late. Too late.

They could still blow the bridge. It would still slow them down. Four or five tanks weren’t going to make a difference.

Go.

Go!

Zeus started to crawl back down. He couldn’t see where he was going because of the rain. He raised his hand to wipe his eyes clear, but as he did, he slipped and started to fall.

He threw himself back against the beam, clinging for dear life.

It was no good. He was too wet to get a grip. He let his feet down, then fell into the flooded marsh below.

Zeus smacked into a deep puddle of water. His feet collapsed beneath him and he slipped backward, falling so his head plunged below the surface of the water. Though it was just barely over his face, he still managed to get water up his nose. Coughing, he rolled over and staggered to his feet, pushing away from the bridge.

A light moved across it — one of the tanks.

A gust of wind slammed so hard against his back that Zeus felt himself turning around involuntarily. He hunched down and began making toward the field, trudging through the water and mud. What had been just a wet field just a few minutes before was now a torrent of water.

The way the water was rising, it might go over the bridge. Maybe the Chinese would be stopped after all.

Zeus heard a series of rumbles. Unsure whether they were thunder or cracks from the ZTZ99’s 120 mm guns, he turned back toward the bridge to see what was going on. A flash of lightning revealed the silhouettes of two tanks on the bridge, just starting to cross. Several more approached behind them.

There were already five across. The first two were about fifty yards from the bridge, each on one side of the road. Three more clustered in a row, moving slowly toward them.

Something ran by on his left.

Three figures — one of the attack teams.

Zeus started to follow, trailing by about ten yards. Part of him knew it was foolish. The madman that had taken him over just a short while before had vanished. But the soldier left in control had no better plan.

“Christian!” he yelled. “Christian!”

Something moved on the tank ahead.

Tracers flew.

Zeus threw himself down.

A red light flashed to his right, too large, too jagged, to be gunfire. Zeus turned his head, and saw a black jumble falling in his direction, moving in slow motion against the howling wind. There was a scream above the roar, a cry for help, and a terrible reverberation that shook deep into the earth.

The Vietnamese had managed to blow the charges on the bridge.

2

Ric Kerfer pushed the glass toward the bartender, contemplating the critical question of the moment: another bourbon, or switch to beer?

There were good arguments either way. Lately, bourbon messed with his stomach, not a particularly pleasant situation. It wasn’t automatic, though. There was some sort of equation involved: X amount over whatever it was yielded problems. But what X was, and whether those problems increased geometrically or not beyond it, had yet to be determined.

On the other hand, the beer in this allegedly first-class Manila establishment was decidedly second-rate. The Japanese offerings were basically Japanese. Kerfer liked much that was Japanese, but nothing involving alcohol. Tsingtao — Chinese — was out of the question. Which left Stella, an Italian lager. And what the fuck did the wops know about beer?

Espresso, sure. Grappa, definitely. Wine, eh. But beer?

“Sir?”

“Yeah, I’ll take another bourbon,” said Kerfer. It was research.

He leaned back on the barstool, surveying the lounge, as the Manila First-Class Oasis called itself. The bar was about the last place anyone in the world would look for a hard-ass SEAL leader like Kerfer, which was exactly why he was here.

Unfortunately for Kerfer, he wasn’t quite so impossible to find as he had hoped.

“Either you hit the lottery or you’re getting some money under the table from somewhere.”

Kerfer glanced up into the mirror behind the bar. One of his old sea daddies, Jacob Braney, was standing with his arms folded about twenty paces away.

Kerfer scowled into the mirror.

“Fuck you, chief,” he said as Braney came next to him.

“And yourself back, asshole.”

“Drink?”

“At these prices? You’re buying.”

“Scotch,” Kerfer told the bartender. “Worst crap you got.”

Chief Braney had served under Kerfer during his first SEAL command. While officers didn’t admit it, old sea dogs like Braney had a hell of a lot to teach them, especially when they were still wet behind the ears as Kerfer had been.

One of the things that made Kerfer different was the fact that he admitted it. He considered Braney one of his best teachers in the service, and one of the few men he was truly close to now.

Not that an outsider would ever know it from their conversation.

“God, how the hell do you live with yourself, drinking in a place like this?” asked Braney after his drink arrived. “Look at this — all these guys are wearing suits.”

“I think of it like I’m goin’ to the zoo.”

Braney laughed. He’d left the Navy a few years before; after six months catching up on all the sleep he’d missed, he’d gone back to work, first as a contract CIA worker, then with the National Security adviser’s office. He’d never been forthcoming with the details of his employment in either case, though Kerfer knew the general lay of the land, and had even worked with him a few times.

“So, to what do I owe the pleasure?” asked Kerfer.

“Can’t a guy just wander in to see an old friend and bum a drink?”

“Sure. And Cinderella’s sittin’ upstairs with her legs spread, waiting for me.”

Braney smiled and drained the Scotch. “Another,” he said, pushing it toward the bartender.

“We need something done really fast, in a place you’ve been very recently,” said Braney.

“Uh-huh.”

“Boss asked for you specifically.”

“I’ll bet.”

“Well, I think they thought you were in the States,” said Braney. “I was sent to track you down.”

“You really should get a better job,” said Kerfer.

A half hour later, driving to the airport, Braney handed Kerfer a sat phone and gave him the outlines of his mission.

“There are some goodies from our Russian friends that need to be delivered to Vietnam. They’ll tell you where once you’re in the air.”

“Why not tell me now?”

“I don’t think they’re sure themselves. It’s all quiet, you know.”

“That country is one big fuckup.” Kerfer stopped talking as Braney passed a pair of slow-moving trucks. Driving was not the chief’s forte. He’d once nearly driven straight off a bridge in Venezuela on a clear, dry day when he hadn’t had a drink for a week.

Which, come to think of it, might have been half the problem.

“I don’t get much input on foreign affairs,” Braney told him as he pulled back into the lane, barely missing an oncoming Suzuki compact. “I’m just the messenger.”

“Well, send them back the message that it’s one big fuckup.”

“I’m sure they’ll listen with all ears. Don’t use the phone to call out unless it’s an A-l emergency. And if things fuck up bad, they aren’t gonna want to know you.”

“Feeling’s mutual, I’m sure.”

3

Zeus watched as the bridge fell into the marsh, the tanks falling like toys. He was twenty yards away from the edge of the bridge, if that, but the howl of the wind was so strong that he couldn’t hear the crash.

He felt it, though, the earth moving beneath his chest in a long, violent ripple. He watched from his knees, shielding his eyes with his hand. A bank of steam filled the air where the bridge had been. He rose, leaning forward to see through it, then immediately threw himself down, ducking below the tracers from one of the tanks that had already crossed.

A yellow light moved into the space where the bridge had been, crawling forward at a snail’s pace. Had the driver not seen the bridge go down? Suddenly the light dropped, the dark shadow behind it disappearing.

Zeus crawled to his right, toward the edge of the ravine. The water was rising rapidly, filled not only by the rain but the runoff from higher ground.

There were figures in the water, and big black boxes — overturned tanks.

Another ZTZ99 started firing from the right side of the ravine, before the bridge. Men moved. Zeus heard shouts on the wind.

Where the hell was Christian?

Zeus heard a motor whine nearby. He looked to his left and saw one of the tanks that had already crossed. It was backing up in his direction. He got up and began to run to his right, trying simply to get out of the way.

A flash of lightning revealed a soldier on the top of the tank. He whirled the machine gun around and began firing into the ravine, raking it with gunfire.

One of the other tanks began returning fire. The tank reversed course, starting back onto the road.

The soldier dropped from the tank.

Zeus found him curled up in the field a short distance ahead. A fresh volley of rain fell in a ferocious swoop, pelting him from all sides as the wind shifted back and forth, unable to decide on which path offered the maximum chance for destruction.

The body didn’t move. Zeus reached the legs and pulled himself forward, turning the man over as he crawled next to him.

It wasn’t a Vietnamese soldier. It was Christian.

“Hey!”yelled Zeus. “Hey!”

Christian remained motionless.

Zeus pulled himself up to a kneeling position, then tucked his shoulder down into Christian’s chest. He gathered the major’s legs and rose, staggering in the slippery, wet grass. There was gunfire somewhere — the high-pitched metallic sound of the machine gun cut through the whine of the wind — but he ignored it. Zeus took two steps. Realizing he was heading the wrong way, he changed course and began moving to his left in the direction of the road.

The tank that Christian had fallen from had stopped about twenty yards ahead. Zeus decided it would be safer to pass behind the tank, cross the road, and move toward the spot where the Vietnamese company was supposed to fall back to.

He’d just started behind the tank when the turret began to move. The gun barrel swung in his direction, so close at first that Zeus thought it was going to hit him. He jerked right, nearly losing his balance, then staggered forward, clear of the gun.

A shadow came at him, moving.

Zeus started to move to his right, to get out of the way. The shadow came right at him, materializing into a man. They collided, falling down.

“Leave the tank,” Zeus shouted, figuring that the man was one of the Vietnamese soldiers attacking the tank. “Help me get my friend out of here! He’s hurt!”

The other man didn’t move. Zeus pulled Christian up over his shoulder. He heard a groan — the first sign of life.

He turned back to the soldier he’d run into. The man was two or three feet away, saying something. In the wind and the rain it was impossible to hear what it was, or even make out the language.

Lightning flashed. Zeus saw an insignia on the man’s lapel. He was an officer.

Chinese. With a gun in his hand.

Zeus dove at him, using his body and Christian’s to bowl him over. The gun went off near his head, and Zeus felt something burn the side of his face.

There was a rumble. A whistle — the mortars were firing again.

He couldn’t see where the Chinese officer was, even though he had to be very close. Still holding Christian over his shoulder, Zeus pushed up to his knees, then to his feet. And began to run with every ounce of his strength. His feet sunk deeply into the soft, mucky earth.

I have to get away from the mortars.

The shells exploded everywhere, fists pounding the earth. Zeus spotted a low mound on his left and headed for it.

It was the house that had been blown up earlier. He detoured right, barely avoiding a crater that had been left by one of the tank shells.

His lungs ached. The rest of him was numb.

His pace, slow to begin with, slacked until he was barely making progress.

A figure rose about thirty yards from him. Another.

“I’m a friend!” he yelled. “American!”

He kept moving forward. They yelled again. Their guns were pointed in his direction.

God, it’s the Chinese, he thought.

Exhausted, he slipped to his knees. As he crumbled, he felt a hand catch him and looked up into the face of Major Chaū, the translator.

4

And with a sudden crash, the worst of the storm was over.

The wind, still strong, shifted. The waves, still high, continued to pound. But the McLane, struggling for hours in the darkness, stood upright in the waves.

There was no longer a question of survival. The worst of the typhoon had passed.

Silas, still manning the wheel, turned to his crew. A relief team had come up; the seamen who’d been injured had been helped to sick bay.

When? Hours ago? Minutes? He couldn’t remember or calculate.

His hands trembled when he took them off the wheel, turning it over to petty officer Gordon.

“Lieutenant Cradle, I’m going below to check on the ship,” he told the officer of the deck.

“Sir.”

It was a good, bracing response. Silas nodded.

Lt. Commander Li met him in the CIC. Her face looked bleached white, except for the purplish welts beneath her eyes.

“Commander, you were right,” he told Li. “I owe you and the ship’s crew an apology.”

Her lower lip trembled. She half nodded, then struggled to respond. “Commander, the merchant ships…”

Silas frowned, waiting for the news.

“The ships are three miles from us,” she told him. “East.”

“East?”

“Yes, sir. We’re between them and the port,” she told him. “You did it.”

“We did it,” said Silas. “Get the boarding teams ready. I’ll be on the bridge.”

5

Christian was dead.

There was no way of knowing which of the several bullets that had hit him had killed him. Most had left large gouges in his body, thick angry welts.

The hole near the middle of his forehead was small, cut by a 9 mm bullet. Probably the same one that had grazed Zeus on the cheek, though no one would ever know for sure.

For much of the time he had known him, Zeus had despised Christian. He’d been an uptight prig at West Point, an insufferable know-it-all as Perry’s aide.

A crazy idiot when they’d escaped through China.

But now Zeus remembered him as a valuable soldier. He’d proven himself on the Hainan mission.

And in China, and again blowing the last bridge. Maybe he’d been the one who fixed the charge — no one would ever know, because the sapper had died as well.

You’re not the only nut.

The storm and the destruction of the two bridges broke the Chinese tank brigade into three different knots. The rising water and flooded fields made it impossible for the tanks to advance. Using coordinates from the company near the second bridge, the Vietnamese began sending 120mm artillery rounds against the five tanks that had come farthest south.

Their marksmanship left something to be desired. Out of two dozen shells, only one had struck a tank. The commander, who had precious few armor-piercing rounds to begin with, called a halt to the shelling, deciding that his men would do better once the storm subsided. But the shelling convinced the Chinese that it would be foolhardy to remain where they were, and the lead element attempted to pull back. All but one of their tanks floundered in the flooded ravine.

The bullet that had grazed Zeus had done only superficial damage, but it was a wound nonetheless, and Major Chaū insisted that Zeus go to a hospital to get it cared for. Chaū was already spooked by Christian’s death, worried that General Trung would hold him personally responsible.

“I’ll tell him what happened,” Zeus assured the translator. “It’s not your fault.”

Chaū’s eyes brimmed with tears.

“The company commander says there is a car we can use in the village about two miles back. I’ll bring it back.”

“I’ll go with you,” said Zeus.

They left Christian’s body in the rain. There was nothing to cover him with.

Zeus and Major Chaū trudged down the road nearly shoulder to shoulder, silently. When they reached the village, Chaū asked Zeus if he wanted something to eat. Zeus shook his head. His stomach was wrenched tight; he’d never get anything into it.

What he wanted was to see Anna. He wanted to see her and hug her and hold her in bed, to stay there for days and weeks.

The car wasn’t where it was supposed to be. They went to the nearest house and pounded on the door. Zeus thought the house was empty and the village abandoned, but that wasn’t the case: the door opened and a middle-aged woman, bundled in a raincoat, appeared.

She knew nothing about a car, but gave them directions to the police station. They weren’t of much help. It took nearly an hour before Major Chaū managed to find a vehicle. The owner gave them the keys, deciding it was safer to remain at home.

They drove back to the company, put Christian’s body in the trunk, then reversed course.

A few minutes later, there was a fresh crack in the storm, a loud thud. By the time the second one came, Zeus realized it wasn’t thunder — the Chinese tanks were firing their guns at the village where they’d found the car, deciding to take revenge on whatever they could. Surely they were firing blind. Even if there hadn’t been a storm, the topography and distance made it impossible to see the village from where they were. The only guidance they had were their maps.

Major Chaū stepped on the gas.

“They’ll kill everyone in those houses,” said Zeus.

Chaū didn’t answer. It was too late to get the people out — the shells were falling rapidly now, and it would be just a matter of luck where they exploded.

Zeus dropped his head on his chest, rubbing the rain from his hair.

Calling Perry to tell him about Christian’s death was the most difficult thing Zeus had ever done. He punched the numbers on the sat phone tentatively, then put it to his ear. He hoped the general wouldn’t answer.

Perry picked up on the first ring.

“General, it’s Zeus.”

“Major?”

“We stopped the tanks. They’re definitely stopped.”

“Good.”

“The advance is definitely slowed. For now at least. It’ll take them some time to regroup. They may be able to find a place to get across the fields once the storm stops and the water goes down. But they won’t get to Hai Phong tonight. Or probably not tomorrow.”

“Excellent. Good work, Major. How’s Christian holding up?”

Zeus couldn’t speak for a moment. When he did, his voice trembled.

“Major Christian, sir, didn’t make it.”

Perry said nothing. The silence grew until Zeus couldn’t stand it anymore.

“He… the Vietnamese put demolitions on one of the bridges and something went wrong. He went back and fixed them,” said Zeus. “We went back. And then, uh, he went into the field. There was fighting there, and then, he was trying to make his way back.”

“Where’s his body?” said Perry.

“I have it.”

The silence lasted for only a few seconds, but they were painful to Zeus. Finally, he had to speak.

“Should I bring him to the embassy?”

“Take him to the hospital where you were treated. Someone will meet you there. What shape are you in?”

“I’m fine.”

“Report to me at Trung’s headquarters.”

“Yes, sir.”

Chaū suggested that they put Christian in the backseat and make it look as if he were injured rather than dead. Once inside the hospital, they could take the body directly to the morgue.

“I would guess that the general does not want people to know it is an American officer,” said Chaū. “That is why he would be taken to the hospital.”

Zeus closed his eyes as they opened the trunk. A wild thought sprang into his head: it had all been a dream, it hadn’t happened, at least not the way he remembered it.

But Christian’s body, drained of blood, sopping wet, was curled in the small space before him. In the darkness, Zeus couldn’t see his face. He was thankful for that.

By now, the hospital seemed familiar, as if it were a place Zeus where belonged. A gurney and two nurses met them in the long hall. Zeus stepped back, pushing against the wall as the medical people took over. Water dripped from him to the floor, puddling around his feet.

He watched the stretcher disappear. He kept thinking Christian would rise and hop off.

A hand folded gently around his arm.

Anna!

It was only a nurse. She tugged him lightly.

“Your cheek,” said Major Chaū. “She wants to see to clean it.”

“I want to be seen by Dr. Anway,” said Zeus, going with her. “Dr. Anway. Tell her.”

Chaū told the nurse. She shook her head as they spoke in Vietnamese.

“You have to go with her,” said Chaū. “She’ll treat you.”

“I want Dr. Anway.”

“She says she’s not here,” said Chaū.

“She works the night shift. Did she leave?”

Chaū spoke to the nurse again. This time she said very little, instead prodding Zeus toward the wards.

“She doesn’t know. You better go with her and get treated,” said Chaū.

“Where are you going?” Zeus asked as Chaū started to turn away.

“I will look after the arrangements. Then I must go to General Trung. I will have a car for you, to wait. I will meet you back at the bunker.”

Zeus let himself be led downstairs. The nurse sat him in a small, nearly empty room right off the stairwell. A polished steel stool sat in the middle of the room. There was no other furniture, no med cart, no instruments or monitors.

She told him something in Vietnamese, then left.

The wet, muddy clothes weighed Zeus down. As he stared at the floor, a haze seemed to fall over him. He sat and stared, unable to think.

A short time later, the door opened. Two nurses, neither of whom he’d ever seen before, entered. One had a tray with a basin and cloth; the other carried what looked like a tackle box.

“Is Dr. Anway here?” he asked them. “Dr. Anway?”

The nurses glanced at each other.

“Do you speak English?” he asked. “I know I’m probably messing up the pronunciation. I’m sorry.”

The nurse with the tackle box told him something in Vietnamese and put her hand gently on his arm.

“I’m not nervous or anything,” said Zeus. He pointed at his face. “This probably looks like hell, but I’m okay. It doesn’t even hurt, really.”

It stung when they cleaned it, spraying it with a liquid that the nurse had in the box. Zeus tried not to flinch.

The women discussed something in Vietnamese, then motioned that he should take off his clothes. They wanted to see if there were more wounds.

“I’m all right, really,” said Zeus.

They insisted. The one who had brought in the basin to wash him put her hands on his shirt to unbutton it.

Zeus jerked to stop her, grabbing her hand. She shrank back. He let go.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry. I’ll do it.”

Zeus peeled off his sodden shirt. They were on their guard now, afraid of him.

There was nowhere to put the shirt. He let it drop to the floor. It made a loud ker-plunk, almost a splash. He peeled off his undershirt.

His arms and his chest were crisscrossed with bruises and scrapes and cuts. They were a map of his war.

Their war. He was just a bystander, an adviser. Or at least was supposed to be.

As was Christian.

You’re not the only nut.

The nurses cleaned him up gingerly. None of his cuts was fresh enough to sting as they sprayed and daubed. After his chest, they wanted to work on his legs.

Zeus, reluctant, got off the stool and pulled down his pants, leaving his sodden underwear in place. They were nurses, but he felt embarrassed before them.

“Dr. Anway?” Zeus asked as they inspected the bruises on his shins. “Is she working tonight? I’m pretty sure she is.”

Neither responded. Zeus resigned himself to finding Anna on his own.

A male attendant entered as the room with a small tape measure, and used it to take the roughest of measurements of Zeus’s body — across the shoulders, legs, torso.

“I could use some underwear, too,” said Zeus as the boy started to leave.

He nodded, then went out the door. A few minutes later, he returned with a pair of surgical scrubs, handing them directly to Zeus. They were stiff and scratchy, but dry. There was no underwear. The boy said something in Vietnamese that Zeus took to be an apology.

“That’s okay,” Zeus told him. “Thank you. Thanks.”

He stood up. The nurses, who were trying to bandage his right knee, backed away quickly.

“I’m going to get dressed now,” he told them. He repeated the words slowly and motioned with his hand. “I want to get dressed.”

One of the nurses said something sternly. Zeus pulled on the shirt, hoping they would get the hint and leave. When they didn’t, he turned away and faced the wall.

Taking off his underpants felt as if he were pulling off a bandage. But the cool air on his skin was a relief. He balanced on one foot, then the other, pulling on the scrubs.

They were too short by about an inch. Barefoot, he turned around.

The nurses were gathering their things, facing the other way.

“Do you have any shoes?” Zeus asked. “Something for my feet? Shoes?”

As he pointed, the door opened. The boy had returned with a pair of sandals.

“It’s like magic,” said Zeus. He smiled and sat on the stool. To his surprise, the sandals fit perfectly.

He took his sat phone and put it in the pocket of his shirt; it hung out precariously. He bent down to the pile of sodden clothes on the floor and folded them into a bundle as best he could.

The nurse who had wheeled in the cart began talking to him, pointing to his arms and legs, giving him directions on how he should care for his injuries. Zeus nodded solemnly; in truth, he probably paid as much attention to these incomprehensible instructions as to any medical instructions he had ever received.

“Dr. Anway?” he asked when she finished. “I want to see her.”

The nurse held out her hands, indicating she didn’t know what he was saying.

Zeus trailed the women out of the room, his legs stiff and a little wobbly from sitting. The hospital was quieter than he remembered, almost serene.

He went to the ward where he had first seen Anna, then stopped. What if she had changed her mind about him?

She wouldn’t.

He stepped into the room, sidestepping along the wall so he wouldn’t be in the way.

The ward looked bigger than it had the other day. Zeus saw a woman’s back at the far end of the room. His heart jumped.

He was about halfway there when she turned and he realized it wasn’t Anna. She gave him a quizzical glance.

“Dr. Anway?” he asked. “Is she here?”

“Who?”

“You speak English?” Zeus asked. “I’m looking for Dr. Anway. I’m, uh, Zeus Murphy. Major Murphy? She worked on me… I was her patient. I am her patient.” He looked down at his scrubs. “I was just patched up. I wanted to make sure… I thought, you know, she was a doctor so I wanted her to check me out.”

The nurse shook her head, her mastery of English overwhelmed by the sheer amount of words that had flooded from Zeus’s mouth. She pointed to the floor: a small puddle had dripped there from his wet clothes.

“I’m sorry,” he told her.

“You are a patient?”

“Yes. Dr. Anway’s.”

She came over and put her hand on his arm. He let her guide him out of the ward. When she turned in the direction of the stairs, he stopped.

“I wanted to see Dr. Anway before I left.”

She frowned at him, then turned and walked in the other direction. Zeus decided his best bet would be to follow.

The room where the shooting had occurred was on his right. He glanced in as he passed, only to make sure Anna wasn’t there. It was empty.

A middle-aged man in a lab coat came out into the hallway. “You are Major Murphy,” he said.

“Yes.”

“I am Dr. Quan.”

Zeus moved his clothes to his left arm and held his right hand out to shake. The doctor hesitated a moment, then clamped his hand around Zeus’s.

“You need something for your things,” said the doctor. “Come into my office.”

“Thanks.”

Zeus followed him into the room, which was more like a small alcove off a narrow corridor that ran perpendicular to the main hall. The nurse Zeus had followed was standing at the edge of the alcove, watching apprehensively.

“Thank you,” Zeus said as she started to leave. “Thanks.”

“Here,” said the doctor, taking a mesh bag from behind a filing cabinet near the wall. He held it open. Zeus squeezed his clothes in. More water dripped on the floor.

“I’m very sorry,” Zeus told him.

“Someone will clean it up. Don’t worry.”

The office space was small, with a metal desk pushed up against the side, and the filing cabinet taking most of the space opposite it. The doctor seemed not to have a chair, not even behind the desk.

“I wanted to see Dr. Anway,” Zeus said. “She had helped me before. We’re friends now.”

“Dr. Anway.”

“Anna.” Zeus couldn’t believe that anyone who worked here, let along another doctor, wouldn’t know her. “Where is she? Is she working today?”

“Dr. Anway is not here.” Dr. Quan pushed his lips together, his cheeks pinching inward.

“Where is she?” Zeus asked.

“I don’t know.”

“What happened to Anna?” said Zeus, leaning closer.

“She was arrested as a traitor,” said the doctor, looking down. “I know nothing else.”

6

Perry needed to make the call to Washington from outside the bunker, not just because the signal for his scrambled sat phone wouldn’t reach from beneath all the cement and metal grids, but because he could not trust the Vietnamese not to listen in. He certainly would under the circumstances.

Unfortunately, that meant standing in the rain and the wind to make the call. He pulled the collar of his raincoat up and took his cap out and put it onto his head, pulling the beak down over his eyes until he could barely see.

The phone rang once on the other side before Walter Jackson, the President’s National Security adviser, answered.

Personally. One measure of the importance of his mission.

“Walter, this is Perry.”

“General.”

“I need to talk to the President. As soon as possible.”

“That’s not a problem, General. He happens to be right here in my office.”

There was a slight delay as the President picked up another phone.

“Harland. Bringing good news, I hope.”

“No, Mr. President. I’m not.”

“Okay.” Greene’s voice dropped about a half octave, and the cheeriness was gone. “Tell it to me straight.”

“One of my men died in action.”

Perry explained the circumstances briefly. Neither Greene nor Jackson interrupted.

“I think that, unfortunately, under the circumstances, it was a necessary sacrifice,” said the President.

His voice was so emotionless a shudder ran through Perry’s body. The general immediately upbraided himself. The President’s attitude was hardly surprising; it was exactly the way a commander ought to think. The stakes were much higher, much more important, than the life of any one individual.

It was the way Perry should think. It was the way he had thought in the past.

“Our read on the situation is a little more positive today,” said Jackson, filling the silence. “Between the action in the east and the storm, the Chinese advance is stalled. If you can capitalize on that, delay it even further, that would be a good thing.”

“The Russian missiles should be there soon,” said the President. “I’m still working with Congress. Eventually, you’ll have real support. I may send SOCCOM; we’re discussing that right now.”

SOCCOM was shorthand for Special Operations Command — Special Forces, Rangers, SEALs. Covert units the President could essentially sneak into the country without telling Congress.

“Continue helping the Vietnamese,” added Greene. “Spare no effort. We have to slow down the Chinese.”

Perry’s throat suddenly thickened. “Mr. President, I think under the circumstances we’re going too far. Given the status on Congress, if we have more casualties — ”

“Not to be crass, Harland,” said Jackson, “but what casualties are we talking about? We haven’t committed troops.”

“One of my majors just died.”

“I’m sorry about your man, Harland. Those are my orders,” said Greene.

“George — ”

“If you’re unable to carry out your mission — ”

“That’s not necessary,” said Perry, almost under his breath.

“Good,” said Greene.

Perry struggled to articulate his objections to escalation by pieces. Bringing in special ops troops now for more missions wasn’t going to change the war. The only effect would be dead Americans — more people like Christian.

But the President had already hung up. He punched off the phone and went back inside the bunker.

7

The door to Anna’s apartment was open. There was no one inside, and the place seemed neat and completely in order, as if she had just gone down to a neighbor’s. But she hadn’t.

No one in the building answered his or her door when he knocked. Not that he would have been able to talk to them anyway.

Zeus had no idea what to do. Finally he went back to the hotel, changed into his BDUs — the only clean clothes he had left — and had the driver Chaū had left him take him to the bunker.

“What the hell did you do?”

General Perry’s words slapped Zeus as harshly as the rain had. He curled his fingers into fists and looked at the ground.

“Excuse me, sir?”

“What did I tell you? I told you to stay away from the action. Why the hell aren’t you in civilian clothes?”

“This is all I had that was dry.”

“What the hell did you think you were doing?” Perry shook his head. “You’re out of control, Major. I gave you orders — you know what our mission here is. We are not here. We are not involved. I thought you understood that.”

There were any number of things Zeus could say, but Perry was in no mood to be interrupted. His stars were screaming, and the only option was to shut up.

“What the hell got into you, Zeus? You were the responsible one.”

“General, I can’t say — ”

“You’re damn straight, you can’t say. Why did you let Christian jump on that tank?”

Perry had obviously gotten a report from the Vietnamese.

“I didn’t let him do anything, sir,” said Zeus. “He ran before I could stop him.”

“Christian did that? Christian ran into the line of fire?”

“It wasn’t like that. There were explosives set to a bridge, and they didn’t go off. Christian thought he could fix them. He went with the demo guy and I went after him.”

“What the hell does he know about demolitions? Jesus, Zeus! You should have stopped him.”

“I did run after him. In the storm, it was hard to tell what was going on.”

“Damn it, Murphy! I told you to stay away.”

Zeus felt his cheeks burning. Part of him realized that Perry was just unleashing his frustration, fairly or unfairly, on the object that happened to be closest at hand.

Unfairly. Perry’s attitude was one hundred and eighty degrees from where it had been only a few days before. He’d approved the mission to Hainan, which was even more suicidal than what he and Christian had just done.

“Go back to your quarters,” said Perry finally. “Don’t come until you’re called for.”

Zeus turned on his heel and left without a word.

Perry folded his arms in front of his chest, angry with himself for losing control. He’d been unfair to Zeus.

But then everything about the situation was unfair. They shouldn’t be here in the first place if the country wasn’t going to support them.

Now he had to deal with Christian’s death.

There was a knock on the door. One of Trung’s colonels leaned his head inside.

“General, if you have time,” said the colonel, “General Trung would request to talk to you.”

Perry walked with him to Trung’s office, his mind still fixed on the problem of Christian. It was the lying to the family that bothered him. He couldn’t tell them what had happened because of where it had happened, so he’d have to make up a story. That was lying.

It dishonored everyone.

Trung was talking to General Tri, the commander in the northeast whom they’d been helping. Perry stopped just outside the doorway.

“General Perry,” said Trung in English. “We would be honored if you could join us.”

“General.” Perry nodded at Tri.

“We are very grateful, once more, for your help,” said Tri. “And for the sacrifices of your men.”

“Yes.”

“Were you successful in obtaining the weapons?” asked Trung.

“I’ve been told two planeloads of Russian AT-14s are en route,” said Perry. “There will be more.”

“We have only the missiles for the infantrymen?” said Tri. “Nothing for the tanks?”

“That’s all so far.”

“As we are constituted,” said Trung, “the best strategy would be to use these weapons in the north immediately. In the west we still have time.”

“Agreed,” said Perry.

“If Major Murphy is agreeable, we would appreciate his tactical advice,” said Trung.

Perry stiffened.

“Major Murphy needs to rest,” said Perry.

Trung stared at him. Perry stared back.

“The Vietnamese people are grateful for your sacrifices,” said Trung finally. “As is General Tri.”

“Thank you.”

“We have no experience deploying that weapon,” continued Trung. “We would be grateful for assistance.”

Perry had been ordered to provide assistance — which meant that he should allow Murphy to help.

It was his duty.

“Once the major has rested, he can assist in developing a proper strategy,” said Perry. “I’m sure he’d be happy to do so.”

“Thank you, General. We are most grateful.”

“Yes,” said Perry. “I’m sure.”

8

Zeus needed someone to help him deal with the Vietnamese so he could find Anna, but it was pretty clear to him that General Perry wasn’t going to help. The only person he could think of who might was Ambassador Behrens. So instead of returning to the hotel, he went back to the embassy.

The rain had slackened to a light mist. That was bad, he thought; the more water, the better for the Vietnamese.

The Marine in the center hall told him the ambassador was out. He suggested he see Juliet Greig instead, and pointed Zeus toward her office.

Zeus sneezed as he went up the stairs. “That’s all I need now, a cold,” he muttered.

Greig’s office was a suite, with two outer offices and a larger inner one. When he didn’t see her in any of the rooms, Zeus decided to stand near the hallway door and wait for her. He’d been standing a few moments when he realized he smelled coffee being brewed somewhere in the vicinity. He walked toward the end of the hallway, and found a room that served as a kind of kitchenette, with a counter and a small refrigerator and a microwave.

Greig was standing in front of a Mr. Coffee, watching as fresh coffee poured into the carafe.

“Real coffee,” said Zeus.

“Major Murphy.” Greig, surprised, gave him an exaggerated sideways glance, then took the pot from the holder and poured a cup. “Would you like some?”

“That’d be great.”

She reached up and opened the cabinet, taking down a cup. Stretched, her arm muscles showed strong definition.

“And how would you like it?” she asked.

“I’ll just drink it black.”

“Good choice.” She handed him the cup she had already poured. “We don’t have any milk. And the sugar supply is getting low.”

Zeus took the coffee and held it under his nose. The steam felt good on his sinuses.

“Smell good?” she asked, her tone slightly mocking.

“My nose is a little stuffed up. I think I’m getting a cold.”

“That’s too bad. How’s the storm?”

“It’s, uh… wet.”

“I see.” She glanced down at the floor. He’d trailed rain onto the rug.

“It was worse before,” said Zeus.

She poured herself a cup, then took a sip.

“Are you here for a meeting?” she asked.

“I kinda have… there’s a problem with one of the Vietnamese doctors who helped me. She’s in trouble. I was wondering if the ambassador could help.”

“Let’s discuss this in my office,” she told him.

For the ambassador to intercede in a case of treason would be highly unusual, Greig told Zeus after he explained why he had come. There were all sorts of political nuances involved, and Behrens would almost certainly refuse to be involved on an official level.

Unofficially, Greig might be able to do something herself. She was the acting consul general, and as such, used to helping Americans deal with the Vietnamese authorities.

Still, she didn’t hold out a lot of hope. Her body language — arms furled in front of her breasts, legs crossed in a tight wedge — emphasized the point. She sat at the edge of her desk, a few feet from him in the large inner office.

“The Vietnamese government is very hierarchical,” Greig told him. “They don’t take very kindly to outside interference. They’re very touchy.”

“I’m not trying to interfere. I just want to get her out. She’s not a traitor.”

“They may see things very differently. The Chinese are massacring their people.”

“That doesn’t give them the right to kill injured prisoners of war,” said Zeus. He started to get up from the overstuffed chair. “I’m sorry to waste your time.”

“Wait, wait. Relax, Major.” Greig put her hands on the desk behind her, as if bracing herself. “I didn’t say I wouldn’t try to help. I’m just putting things into their perspective, that’s all. If you’re going to help her, you’re going to have to understand the system she lives in.”

“You don’t sound very optimistic.”

“I’m trying to be realistic. I’ll talk to some people in the government whom I know. That’s where I’ll start. But with the war, obviously, I don’t know how much help they’ll be.”

“I risked my life for them. One of my friends got killed.”

“Which friend?”

Zeus was surprised that Greig didn’t know about Christian.

“Some of the Vietnamese I met,” he told her, deciding to backtrack. “They didn’t make it.”

“Mmmm.” She didn’t seem to believe him, but she didn’t press. “Let me ask you a personal question, Zeus. What’s the nature of your relationship with Dr. Anway?”

“There is no relationship.”

“None?”

“She helped me, that’s all. And I… I saw what happened.”

“I’ll do what I can, Major. But don’t expect miracles.”

9

Josh kicked the clod of dirt, watching it burst into a dozen small pieces as his toe launched it into the air.

His cousin had recently turned over the ground of what they called the house garden behind the barn, ready to plant some of the early vegetables. The small garden was separate from the actual farming operation. It was a full acre, elaborately laid out and carefully tended by hand. In a few months’ time, it would be filled with tomatoes and cucumbers and melons, several different kinds of lettuce, and huge, long green beans that Josh remembered from his childhood as veritable swords.

The farm had been in the family for generations, through good and bad times. Mostly, they’d grown wheat and soybeans, though a good portion of the land supported dairy cows for a while, and forty acres had been devoted to corn, supposedly since the days of the Indians.

It was on the farm that Josh had first become interested in how things worked together, how different plants thrived under different conditions, and it was in the house garden that his interest was piqued. Some of the varieties they grew had been passed down for several generations. Among the prize vegetables was a particularly squat but juicy striped tomato that bore no resemblance to anything Josh had seen anywhere else.

Josh was not a farmer, for many reasons. But he did love to stand in the middle of a farm, close enough to the barn to feel its smell, or near to the machines, or out in the middle of fields that seemed to go on forever.

This was the American core, at least as he knew it. Ironically, while the rest of the world was sinking fast into depression, agriculture in America was booming. The climate pressures were helping.

Temporarily, and in select places; much of the southeast was facing a severe drought, which Josh knew would only get worse. It was a slow-motion disaster, which meant there was still some time to deal with it.

Ironically, that made people less likely to face the problem. As he’d seen in China.

Josh shook his head. The rest of the world was not his concern. War was not his problem. He was a scientist, and his job was science. The war would end. Science would not.

He kicked another clump of dirt.

Josh left the garden and walked up the little hill where they had gone sleigh-riding as a kid. He wondered if his cousins still did that.

His parents had died not far from here, in a massacre that the newspapers had compared to the much more famous In Cold Blood crimes. He could almost see where the house had been from the hill.

He could see it, actually, if he looked hard enough. But he didn’t.

He could see it even more clearly if he closed his eyes and thought about that day. But that he never did.

Josh headed back for the house. It would be good to go back to work soon, but where exactly would he go? He was still on a stipend from the UN Climate Catch program. He had to talk to them, see what they wanted him to do.

He smelled the strong scent of coffee a good twenty paces from the back door. He went into the kitchen, where his cousin’s wife, Debra, was just cleaning up.

“There you are, Josh. Fresh coffee’s up.”

“Thanks.” He went to the cupboard and took out a large mug. When he was little, the farm had belonged to his grandfather. With the exception of the appliances and TV sets, very little had changed. The kitchen stove, a massive eight-burner, two-oven behemoth, was so old it had to be lit by hand.

“How long’s your friend staying?” Debra asked.

“I, uh… I don’t know. He’s supposed to be protecting me.”

“There are a lot of crazies out there,” said Debra.

Josh wondered if she was worried about her kids. She didn’t seem to be.

“I can talk to him and find out.”

“It’s no bother,” she said cheerfully. “Jim might put him to work.”

“Might not be a bad idea.”

“I have some errands in town this morning. Want to come?”

“Nah, I’m just going to take it easy if that’s okay.”

“That’s good.” She smiled at him and disappeared to get her things.

The morning paper sat on the kitchen table. Josh folded it over and pushed it aside.

“Good morning,” said Tex, coming into the kitchen.

“Morning. There’s coffee.”

“Thanks.” The marshal went over to it. “Sleep well?”

“Passably.”

The marshal filled his cup. He took three sugars.

“You leaving today?” Josh asked.

“Uh… I’m supposed to hang around for a few more days. We have a couple of more agents coming out.”

“More?”

“We usually work in shifts. Can’t be too careful.”

“You really think it’s necessary? I’m old news.”

Tex grimaced slightly, then sat down with his coffee.

“Deb’s on her way out,” Josh told him. “If you’re hungry, there’s plenty of food.”

“Some eggs, maybe.”

Tex looked at him — he seemed to be expecting that Josh would make them.

“I’m not much of a cook,” said Josh finally. “There’s a pan under that cabinet there.”

“Yeah, yeah, no — I’m, uh… do they mind?”

“They won’t mind.”

Tex went to the refrigerator and looked inside. He took out two eggs and some butter.

“Damn, I forgot to tell you last night: Mara called. She wanted you to call her back.”

“Oh, okay.”

Josh felt bad about just leaving her like that, but really it was the best way. A clean break. He felt too… if he hadn’t just left, he’d probably never leave her, like a puppy pining for a master it couldn’t have.

“I got the number on my phone,” said Tex. “You want it?”

“When you get a chance,” said Josh, getting up to refill his coffee. “Later’s fine.”

“Okay.” The marshal looked at him for a moment, then turned back to the stove. “How do you get these burners on, you think?”

10

Major Chaū was waiting in the hotel lobby when Zeus got there.

“General Trung was hoping you could give us guidance on the antitanks weapons,” said Chaū. “After you have rested.”

“Let’s go now,” said Zeus.

The Chinese had devoted a Group Army to the attack in the northeast. Roughly the equivalent of a western army corps, this amounted to four divisions on paper, potentially a little more than 46,000 troops. But so far only about a quarter of the force, if that, had made it into Vietnam.

The intelligence data showed that only one armored regiment — eighty tanks — had crossed the border. About a third of the tanks had been kept near Tien Yen to deal with the counterattack there. The rest were stalled along Route 18 between Tien Yen and the bridges Tri’s men had destroyed. Elements of two infantry divisions had gone south with the armor, but most of the soldiers were either in Tien Yen or farther north. Though mechanized, these soldiers would be severely hampered by the storm for at least the next twenty-four hours.

A shipment of Russian AT-14s was expected soon. General Tri wanted to take the weapons and use them against the tanks. But Zeus had a different idea: hit the infantry coming to support them instead.

“The tanks will be ready for an attack,” he explained. “And they’re not going anywhere. You can keep pounding them with artillery.” There was a shortage of armored-piercing shells, Tri’s logistics officer explained. They were trying to get more to the front, but there was no guarantee that they would be successful.

“You have to find them,” said Zeus finally. “And anyway, you’re not getting AT-14s to take out all of those tanks. You’re going to have to leverage what you got.”

Zeus’s idea of leverage was to strike the mechanized infantry as it came south in its APCs, striking from the east rather than the west. He wanted the Vietnamese to organize themselves into three-man teams that would set up multiple ambushes. The Chinese commander was conservative, and would be even more so after having had his nose bloodied with the tanks. He’d be bound to slow down his offensive.

That would give Tri time to stiffen his defenses. He could bring the rest of his tanks down from Tien Yen. If more Russian munitions arrived, they could take on the tanks.

The idea was to slow the Chinese assault in the east for a week. It would take them that long to maneuver the rest of their Group Army — and perhaps bring a second one to reinforce the attack.

“Delaying them is useful,” said Trung, speaking for the first time. “But it is not a substitute for victory.”

“No,” said Zeus. “The idea is to stop their offensive completely. To do that, you have to do something very bold.”

“And what is that?” asked Trung.

“Attack China.”

China had obviously prepared for an offensive war. They had made their calculations and moves, and while there were still some big mysteries — Zeus still wondered why they hadn’t attacked in the Lang Son area, for example — the overall shape of their strategy was clear: basically they were going to roll over Vietnam.

Since Vietnam couldn’t really prevent that, the only way to upend that strategy was to get China to reevaluate it. And the only way that was going to happen was if China saw a threat to their own homeland.

“Hit Nanning with your mobilized division, and the war will grind down to a stalemate,” said Zeus. “The Chinese will panic and pull back. Look at the satellite photos — there’s nothing in their way. You get through the border defenses, and you have a clear drive. It’s a hundred and twenty miles; you’ll be there inside a day. Maybe two.”

Trung appeared stunned. He looked at each of his commanders in turn, then at Zeus.

“The major has a provocative idea. It will be discussed. In the meantime, we will arrange for the strikes against the mechanized infantry, as you suggested. If time can be bought, it will be useful. Major, I am told the missiles are to arrive at Hanoi Airport within the hour. Can you retrieve them and instruct the men in their use?”

“My pleasure,” said Zeus.

The plane was a C-130 that belonged to the Philippines army, an old “slick” as the Air Force might have called it. It landed fast on the Hanoi runway, bouncing hard on the fresh patches covering the results of earlier Chinese bombing raids.

Zeus waited near the terminal building as the plane came across the long cement apron. The storm had passed to the north, leaving humid, heavy air and a light wind in its wake.

The aircraft pirouetted around and the rear ramp slowly lowered. The pilots clearly weren’t being paid by the hour.

Zeus turned to Major Chaū. “Have two of the crates carried into the hangar so I can check the Weapons,” he told him. “Pick them from the middle. In the meantime, load everything into the Ilyushin as fast as you can. These guys are going to want to get out of here real quick.”

Zeus gestured toward the propeller-driven cargo plane sitting in the drizzle a few yards from the hangar. The Ilyushin IL-14 was a Thai commercial cargo carrier that had had the misfortune of landing in Hanoi just a few hours before the war began. Grounded during the first air raid, it had been commandeered by the Vietnamese military; it was about to be used on its first mission, delivering the antitank missiles to General Tri’s men.

Watching from the hangar, Zeus saw a tall, athletic figure dressed entirely in black amble down the ramp. It was too dark to get a good view of who it was, yet the figure was familiar.

“Ah for Christ’s sake, it is a small goddamn world,” said the man, his voice loud enough to carry over the whine of the engines and the howl of the wind. “Let’s see — you are Major Murphy. No relation to the infamous maker of the universal law governing how often shit rolls down in my face.”

Zeus held out his hand to Ric Kerfer, the SEAL officer he’d met helping Josh MacArthur escape from Vietnam some days earlier.

“You got the money?” Kerfer sneered, looking at the hand.

“Money? I thought it was all paid for.”

“It is, Major. I’m janking your chain. What the hell are you still doing in this shithole of a country, huh?”

“My duty.”

Kerfer laughed. “You’re outta your fuckin’ mind.”

“Is everything here?” Zeus asked.

“How the hell do I know? You think they tell me?” Kerfer walked into the hangar. The large expanse was lit by dim red lights. “Yeah, yeah — it’s all here. Ninety-six AT-14Es. All with HEAT warheads. Bang-bang. What are you thinking of doing with these?”

“Blowing up some APCs,” said Zeus.

“You know you gotta get pretty close.” Kerfer’s voice was suddenly all business. That was the way he was, Zeus knew — a cynical, screw-the-world type until things got serious. Then he was the one man you wanted watching your back. “Even with a personnel carrier. You’re not going after tanks?”

“Not if we can help it.”

“That’s good. Because these things ain’t as powerful as they claim. They’ll go through some tanks. Chinese X99s?” Kerfer shrugged. “Fifty-fifty.”

“I know they work,” Zeus told him.

“You’ve used them before?”

“Once.”

Kerfer scoffed.

“And you’ve shot them a lot?” retorted Zeus.

“More than you. Shit. Once.”

Kerfer looked at the Vietnamese soldiers carrying in the two boxes for Zeus to examine. They were men in their fifties and sixties, and they strained mightily to get them inside.

“These aren’t the guys using them, I hope,” said Kerfer.

“No. We’re taking them east.”

He gestured toward the plane. Kerfer looked over.

“Fuckin’ plane is older than you. Older than me,” said Kerfer. “What the hell is it? A DC-3?”

“No. It’s Russian.”

“Fuckin’ Russians. They’re makin’ a mint on this war.” He looked at Zeus. “Tell you what, Major. Why don’t you tell me what the plan is, and I’ll shoot holes in it for you. Before the Chinese do.”

Actually, Kerfer was surprised at the plan, because while not necessarily the most innovative in the world, it wasn’t half bad for a blanket hugger. Leaving the tanks alone made some sense, and not just because he personally doubted the effectiveness of the Russian weapons. The Chinese would be expecting the attack there, and would undoubtedly be better prepared than the infantry supposedly running to its rescue.

But there were two big problems with Zeus’s strategy. First of all, getting the teams into place to use the weapons wasn’t exactly a gimme — the forces were currently southwest of the Chinese troops; Zeus wanted them northeast.

More important, the Vietnamese soldiers hadn’t been trained to use the weapons.

“The ragheads used these weapons against M1s in Iraq,” Kerfer explained. “They worked at night, mostly, and they had night goggles, the whole deal. Supposedly, they trained for years. What I heard is that most of the weapons were fired by Russian mercenaries who knew what they were doing. Which we ain’t got.”

“I don’t think these weapons are hard to handle at all,” said Zeus. He hadn’t heard that mercenaries were involved, and doubted it. “They’re point and shoot.”

“They’re point, shoot, and shit,” said Kerfer. “You have to sit there and keep your sight on the target. The missile follows a laser. So you have to keep beaming the bad guy. Even when they shoot at you. You need a clear sight, straight line to the target. You need balls to use it right.”

“They got them. I’ve seen them work basically suicide attacks without flinching.”

“Hmmmph.”

“Listen, it’s their best shot,” said Zeus. “I agree with you against the tanks. But I think they can take on the APCs. The armor’s a lot lighter.”

He walked over to the pile of crates. They were made of wood, and had Russian lettering on them.

“Says ‘kitchen utensils,’ “ said Kerfer. For once he wasn’t joking.

“You check them out?”

“You think the ‘S’ in SEALs stands for stupid? Of course I looked at them. They’re all there.”

Zeus wanted to see anyway. He went over to the side of the hangar to look for a crowbar. By the time he came back, Kerfer had already pried open the crate using a combat knife. The missiles were packed into large cases that looked like oversized suitcases made of aluminum and plastic. Kerfer laid one on the floor.

“Go to it.” He gestured.

Zeus snapped open the case. He’d never actually assembled one of the weapons — the only time he had used one was during a weapons familiarity training course, and they had already been put together and mounted. Fortunately, they were made to be assembled quickly and easily in the field. The mechanism consisted of a tripod mount, a large box that had the sights and laser beam mechanisms, and the missile tube itself. The device was aimed by peering through a large optical sight tube attached to the lower tripod area.

“Careful,” said Kerfer. “That launch tube comes with a missile in it.”

“It’s safed.”

“Oh, yeah, I’d trust that shit. This is a Russian weapon, remember? Always remember, Amerikanski,” he added, using a hackneyed Russian accent. “We win cold war.”

“I think the Vietnamese can handle them,” said Zeus.

“Maybe.”

“If you got a better idea, I’m all ears.”

“Yeah.” Kerfer frowned. “My idea is to bug the hell out of here.”

The Vietnamese soldiers brought over the last crate. There were a total of ninety-six missiles, with an even dozen launchers. It was far less than Zeus had hoped for.

“What you need is a training session with your guys, then set them out on their own,” said Kerfer. “But you got less than a hundred missiles. So you really can’t afford to lose any.”

“Yeah.”

“You’re not thinking of shooting them yourself?”

“I might.”

Kerfer frowned.

“You want to help me?” asked Zeus.

“I would,” said Kerfer. “But suicide is against my religion. Besides, I gotta go pick up more weapons.”

“Where?”

“Jesus, blanket hugger. I tell you that, I’m going to have to kill you.”

“You bringing back artillery shells? That’s what they need.”

“Not my call.” Kerfer shrugged. “If you’re going to get out there before daylight you better get moving. And tell those guys they’re not hauling rocks. I’d be a hell of a lot more gentle than that.”

Kerfer watched Zeus and the Vietnamese interpreter wrangle their Vietnamese helpers. His plan wasn’t a bad plan at all — if it were being done by SEALs.

But with untrained troops? They might be dedicated, they might even be suicidal, but ninety-odd missiles against a division’s worth of APCs? To say nothing of the odd tank or two that might show up.

Kerfer couldn’t help but admire the major a little. He’d changed somewhat in the days since Kerfer had seen him. Or maybe just more revealed: harder, determined.

Too determined, maybe. He was sliding down a hill Kerfer himself had gone down many times.

Not this time.

Kerfer started to turn back for the C-130, which was waiting for him to take off. He stopped and called to Zeus.

“Hey, Major — ”

“Yeah?”

“You mind if I give you a little friendly advice?”

“Shoot.”

“This isn’t your war.”

Whatever Major Murphy had been expecting to hear, it wasn’t that. He gave Kerfer a puzzled look.

“It’s not your war,” repeated Kerfer. He turned and began walking to the plane, knowing his words would be ignored.

11

Before she could figure out who the traitor was in Hanoi — and even if there definitely was a traitor, as opposed to a more run-of-the-mill thief — Mara Duncan needed to familiarize herself with what was going on in the country. To do that, she spent her time sitting at a computer in a secure room reading and reviewing data from a wide range of sources.

The room looked very much like an ordinary office suite, with partitions and desks clustered in different areas. Two sections were partitioned off by thick glass from the rest, which made it easier for the people inside to have conversations, though generally they didn’t.

Three analysts and Grease were using the room as well. Grease was the only one who took notice of Mara when she came in, and he barely nodded before going back to his screen.

After clearing her security code and putting her thumb on an ID pad, Mara punched in a temporary password. Within seconds, she was scrolling through a list of recent situation reports and analyses. She started by looking at the news reports that had been filed online over the past twelve hours. It was always best to start with fantasy before proceeding to real life.

The disconnect between reality and what was reported wasn’t surprising, of course, though she hadn’t quite realized how strong the sentiment against Vietnam was in the U.S., let alone realized how it colored the news reporting.

Josh’s revelations hadn’t had much impact. Just within the hour, a statement had been released by several retired generals urging the U.S. to remain neutral.

The statement was a dead giveaway that the highest ranks of the Army were adamantly opposed to any involvement. They couldn’t say that publicly, of course, but it was very unlikely that these retired generals would have gone public without at least some backing at the Pentagon.

Mara moved from the press reports to diplomatic cables, and then on to Army and Pentagon intelligence assessments and estimates. From there it was on to the other agencies, starting with the NSA. Somewhere in the middle of looking at the eavesdroppers’ updates and estimates, she realized the Vietnamese were limiting the movements of their armies in an unusual way.

Several decrypted communications between different Vietnamese commands indicated that a no-travel zone in the north was to be strictly enforced at all costs. At first Mara thought this related to the area south of Hanoi proper, where the command bunkers were, but it turned out to be a large swatch of the Yen Tu Mountains.

An armored brigade being rushed to meet the Chinese advance in the east had been warned away from the area. Which didn’t make a lot of sense.

She pointed it out to Grease.

“Yen Tu Pagoda is very sacred, not just to Buddhists but to all Vietnamese,” he told her. “That was where a famous uprising against the Chinese was centered historically. You can see the symbolic significance.”

“The pagoda is nowhere near the roads they were warned away from,” said Mara.

“Tanks would never make it up those mountain roads,” he said. “They were probably just being practical.”

But a no-fly zone as well?

“Huh,” said Mara out loud. She went back to the computer and started reading more.

12

The Ilyushin couldn’t handle the weight of all the missiles, and so a second plane was pressed into service. The jet, an old 727 airliner, nearly ran off the end of the short Hai Phong runway as the pilot tried to brake on the wet pavement in the dark. Its tail swung hard to the left, threatening to spin the aircraft onto the grass infield. When it finally came to a stop, one set of wheels was off the runway.

By the time Zeus got there with Major Chaū, the platoon of soldiers detailed by General Tri to unload the weapons had managed to push the plane back onto the runway apron. The missile crates had been stacked in the aisle between the seats, wedged sideways so they couldn’t move. Thanks to this, all were intact. Major Chaū gave the order to have them unpacked as quickly as possible.

Drawn from volunteers in his regular division, General Tri’s strike force had been assembled at the airport. There were exactly twenty-four soldiers, ranging in age from eighteen to forty-three — a fact that somehow seemed significant to the youngish-looking captain named Kim who led them. He told Zeus proudly that every man had heard of the Americans’ glorious victory against the tanks, and was hoping to live up to his inspiration. General Tri had told them personally that Zeus was one American who would never desert the Vietnamese, and he had proven that with his blood.

Zeus glanced at Major Chaū as he finished translating.

“He’s sincere,” said Chaū. “They all feel that way. We all do.”

“All right. The first thing we do is divide everyone up into three-man teams,” said Zeus.

“Already done,” said Chaū. Captain Kim had even managed to divide the teams up so that at least one man on each team had had some training with antitank missiles.

Zeus showed the men how to set up the launcher. Ideally, he would have had each squad assemble the missiles on their own and take a practice shot before setting out. But there wasn’t enough time for the former, and not enough missiles for the latter. They’d have to learn in the field.

Tien Yen was located beyond an estuary off the South China Sea. There was another large peninsula to the south. Rice fields, probably completely flooded, lay on the south side of the peninsula, which was heavily treed and marshy. Zeus thought they could sail up the far side of the southern peninsula, land near one of the roads to the south, then march inland about a mile and a half to the area of Ha Dong. A regiment of Chinese infantry had stopped here before the rain; their vehicles were the primary target.

“There is another depot here, farther down,” said Zeus, tracing the route on the map. This was held by a platoon’s worth of infantry and their vehicles. “Ideally, we can hit them at the same time. If we move out now, we can get them and withdraw before dawn.”

By the time Major Chaū finished translating, Captain Kim had a worried look on his face. Zeus knew there was a problem.

“You better have him tell me what the problem is,” said Zeus.

With some reluctance, Kim explained that the Vietnamese had been able to muster only two patrol boats for the operation. They weren’t nearly big enough to carry all of the missiles and the men in one trip.

“How many can they carry?” Zeus asked.

Kim wasn’t sure. The weapon crates were bigger than they had thought.

“All right,” said Zeus. “We’ll figure it out when we see the boats. Let’s load up the trucks.”

The two boats the Vietnamese had mustered couldn’t have been more different. The first was a Stolkraft with a trimaran hull, an extremely fast, wide-bodied craft designed as a customs patrol boat. In smooth waters, it was capable of hitting close to 90 knots. With the remnant of the typhoon still beating the waves, the vessel would move considerably slower, but the design made it reasonably stable despite the heavy seas.

The other boat was an ancient U.S. Navy PBR, a Vietnam War-era riverine patrol boat that had somehow made its way up from the delta. It was a tiny vessel, originally designed to handle only four crewmen, and never meant for rough water.

The Stolkraft could have taken all of the men, but not the missiles. Even with some of the men sitting in the life raft on the aft deck, they could only bring five three-man teams with all of their gear. The PBR could take one squad, with all of their missiles loaded aboard the Stolkraft.

“It’ll have to do,” said Zeus. “We’ll take one group up first. They’ll hit the northern depot. The Stolkraft will go back and load up. I’ll meet the second group farther south. We’ll strike the second point.”

“You’re going with them?” asked Major Chaū.

“Yes. I have to show them how to shoot.”

“The procedure seemed easy.”

“I’m going with them. Ask Captain Kim if I can get a rifle. All I have is my Beretta.”

“Captain — ”

“I’m probably a better shot than most of these guys,” Zeus told Major Chaū. “It makes sense that I have a gun.”

“I don’t believe General Trung envisioned your joining the troops,” said Chaū.

Zeus just shrugged.

They set out just as the rain started whipping up again, a last arm of the storm punching them. Zeus stood on the bridge with Major Chaū and the boat’s captain, gripping a handhold for dear life.

It was anything but smooth, but it beat what was happening on the other boat, which bounded up and down like a ball bouncing across the floor.

As long as he remained focused on the mission, Zeus was all right — not only did concentrating on what they were going to do help stave off seasickness, but it kept him from thinking about Anna.

“Another two kilometers to the inlet,” said Major Chaū. “Almost there.”

“Good.”

“You should go back with the boat,” suggested Chaū. “Your own general would surely prefer it.”

Undoubtedly. Perry would surely have a fit when he found out, but Zeus had decided he was going anyway. He couldn’t have said exactly why. Some of it may have been the speech the captain had made, some of it his promise to General Tri. Some of it was duty; despite General Perry’s comments, he felt his orders to help the Vietnamese meant that he had to actually help them, not leave them in the lurch.

And some portion, too, had to do with Anna. If he helped the Vietnamese now, maybe they would release her to him.

A war prize.

The waves calmed considerably as soon as they turned into the narrow strait of water that would take them to their landing area. The captain cut the engines, waiting for the PBR to join them.

Zeus took a long, slow breath and stared out at the blackness in front of the boat. The Chinese army was only a mile and a half away on their right.

It was a foolish plan. He should never have proposed it.

Too late now.

The boat began easing forward. Zeus left the bridge, climbing down the short ladder and walking to the forward deck. A sailor manned the machine gun there; four of the soldiers were crouched nearby, hunched over their knees as they waited to land.

“Looks good,” said Zeus, trying to sound optimistic.

The sailor on the gun raised his hand, catching the spirit if not the precise meaning of what Zeus had said.

The night smelled of metal and wetness, the air thick with the typhoon’s passing remnants. The boat’s captain had predicted a fog would rise from the land as the storm passed. That would help them, Zeus thought, at least until it came time to fire the missiles. The laser needed a clear line of sight to the target, and too much moisture would interfere with the beam.

So they’d wait for dawn then. No turning back now.

The Stolkraft jerked against something. There was a muffled shout from the cabin, a command from the bridge. They moved backward, the craft stuttering in the water. Though shallow-drafted, the vessel had run aground.

They maneuvered a little back and forth. Two sailors stripped to their underwear, and jumped into the water ahead of the bow. One disappeared completely. The other stood in water to his waist.

The sailors guided them farther up the strait toward the land, until finally the boat’s captain decided they were as close as they were going to get. They brought the other boat alongside, then began to unload.

Zeus was the third man off. He slipped into the water as quietly as possible. It was a foot and a half deep.

Before the storm, this had been a rice field. The berms that separated the fields were covered, leaving only those with trees visible.

It took nearly five minutes before the scout at the head of the group found a hump of dry land and a path to two small hovels beyond the field. The men quieted as they neared the buildings, unsure whether they were occupied or not.

Taking no chances, Captain Kim detailed two of his teams to check the first building. It was empty, as was the second. He left a trio of men there to guide the others still coming up from the boats, then continued with the rest to a narrow gravel road a short distance from the houses.

Zeus didn’t have a GPS unit, and had to get his bearings with a Vietnamese map and some Global Hawk images he had brought with him from the planning session. He turned his map sideways, retracing the path they had taken on the water, then moving his finger up through the land toward the hamlet the Chinese had seized as a command post before the storm. He double-checked it against the photos, making sure he was right.

If they went due north, then cut west, they should see Chinese troops. There were two companies waiting out the storm inside the trucks along the road. Another was back in the hamlet.

“We have to get through that lane over there,” Zeus told Captain Kim when he’d collected all his men. “There are some buildings where it meets the local highway. That should give us a vantage point to see up the road. The Chinese stopped about three miles farther north before the rain hit. We should be able to take the road.”

He waited for Major Chaū to translate. The captain nodded vigorously.

Ten minutes later, Zeus and the two Vietnamese privates who were acting as point men drew close to the back of the buildings at the southeastern quadrant of the intersection. There were three structures, all squat and dark. The tallest was a service station.

Zeus used two garbage cans as a makeshift ladder, scrambling up the garage roof. It was made of metal, and between the pitch and slippery rain, Zeus had to climb on all fours.

Just as he reached the apex, his AK-47 slipped off his shoulder and clanked against the metal roof. He cursed himself, pulling the gun strap back in place.

When he put his head up, he saw dozens of Chinese armored vehicles scattered along the road around the intersection. A pair of Z99 tanks sat in the middle of the crossroads.

The Chinese had moved south during the storm.

13

“Pretty damn warm day,” said Tex, putting down the ax to take off his jacket. “Must be all this global warming you’re studying, right?”

“Believe it or not, no,” said Josh. “I mean, it could be, but a warm day like this in February? That sort of thing has been happening forever. Climate change is more subtle.”

“Droughts are subtle?”

“I mean, the effects of climate change are very complex.” Josh picked up his sledgehammer and positioned the splitting wedge over a log. It had been Tex’s idea to cut the family some firewood. Josh had readily agreed, not so much because it was an easy way to thank them for putting him up, but because the exercise would make him forget about Mara.

If he could forget.

He swung the hammer down, getting the wedge in place for the real blow.

“So droughts — they’re the result of climate change?” said Tex, picking up the ax again.

“Yeah. Well, in aggregate.”

“Jesus, Doc. I hate to say this, but you sound like a politician. Mincing your words. You never say what you mean.”

Josh sighed. Actually, he could be extremely precise, talking about numbers and percentages and statistics.

“It’s the trend that’s important,” he told Tex. “Climate change means more droughts. More warm winters like this. Which, for some places is good.”

“I like it,” said Tex. “Don’t need a coat.”

Josh swung the sledge. The log split cleanly in half.

God, he missed Mara. He’d tried calling twice, but his calls went straight to voice mail.

He hadn’t bothered to leave a message. Too much to say.

He bent and took another piece of wood from the pile.

14

Zeus pushed his eye against the aiming sight, whispering just loudly enough for Major Chaū to hear. The tank was zeroed in.

The two team leaders peering over his shoulder mumbled something as Chaū translated the aiming procedure. Zeus leaned back, letting them take a look.

The clouds were moving away. Though it was still a good hour before the sun would rise, the sky was already light gray with a false dawn. The dark smudges they’d seen when they landed were now reasonable facsimiles of trees and buildings.

Zeus had set up two teams on a small rise on the west side of the road, with a clear line to both tanks. Two other crews were gathered around a launcher a short distance away, their weapon aimed at the second tank. Little more than a kilometer separated the launchers from their targets. Easy shots.

“They are ready,” said Chaū.

“All right. Wait until I say fire.”

Zeus trotted over to the other teams. He’d already sighted their weapons.

Just as Zeus reached them, there was a loud pop behind him. Zeus turned to see smoke billowing from the rear of the launcher he had just left.

Shit!

“Fire!” he yelled. “Fire! Fire!”

The missile leapt from the launcher next to him. There was a hiss and a low thur-rump-the. The Russian antitank projectile flew across the field and road, streaking along the line set by the laser beam. Racing against the reddish light, it didn’t stop when it came to the steel hull of the Chinese tank. The missile didn’t realize it had found its target, much less know what its mission was. It kept flying, penetrating into the steel shield and body, exploding in madness and frustration as the red laser light disappeared.

The men inside the tank never knew that they had been fired on. From their perspective, there was a brief, terrible premonition of death, then nothing.

“Load the next one, the next one,” Zeus told the men. “Aim at the APCs. As we planned. As we planned.”

“Yes, Major,” said the team leader. He spoke a little English. The others were already loading a second missile.

Zeus ran to Chaū. “Why the hell did you fire?” he yelled.

“The top of the tank opened. We were afraid we had been seen.”

The other missiles were launching, whizzing across the field. Zeus ran to the squat flat-roof building next to the service station, where he had set up two more teams. As he started to climb, he heard one of the missiles being launched. He got to the top and saw steam furling from the nearest APC.

More missiles fired. Figures began stumbling from the houses up the street. The Vietnamese began firing their AK-47s, gunning them down.

It was working.

“Major! Major!”

Zeus went to the back of the building, where Chaū was calling up to him.

“We have to get back to the boat,” said Chaū. “We have to get back for the second attack.”

“You’re right,” said Zeus. He leapt off the back of the building, rolling to his feet after he hit the ground.

“Everything is running late,” said Chaū, glancing at his watch as the PBR skittered southward, away from the peninsula where they’d landed and launched the attack.

“Yeah,” said Zeus, steadying himself against a spar at the side of the boat.

Chaū’s point was that the second attack would be made during the day, greatly increasing the danger. But there was no sense waiting now. The other units would be on alert because of this attack.

As soon as they fired all of their missiles, Captain Kim and the teams would work their way south toward the second attack point; with luck they would meet up by nightfall to be evacuated.

The Stolkraft met the PBR about two miles north of Hai Phong, the rest of the teams crowded so tightly on the deck of the boat they looked like refugees escaping the war. The PBR took on three men, a full team, then turned and followed the Stolkraft north to the second landing point, a marshy area inland from Dong Dui.

The two boats treaded through a run of islands and jutting fingers of land, heading for a narrow estuary stream that extended nearly sixteen miles from the ocean. They were near Halong Bay, an upended jaw of earth, where some two thousand limestone and dolomite teeth poked through the water, flashing at the dragons said to haunt the area.

A bridge ran over a creek about three miles inland. About a mile north of the bridge was a hamlet where two companies of Chinese APCs had parked before the storm. The units were the farthest south of the Chinese infantry.

Fog drifted in from the ocean, the mist curling around islets of pillarshaped rocks and tree-covered spits of land. The sun played through the mist, cutting it like a sword, flashing against the white rock sides to reveal intricate clefs and scars. The storm had pulled many trees down, and the two boats had to trim their engines to tread through the debris. The ends of tree trunks poked up like the elbows of dead sailors, and the dark hulks of the submerged branches loomed just below the surface, shifting like mythical beasts waiting to spring from the water and swallow the small PBR whole.

Zeus rubbed his arms, suddenly cold. The rounded crags towering over him made him feel puny and small, showing him just how insignificant he was, how tiny, how unimportant.

Kerfer’s words came back to him:

It’s not your war.

Standing on the forward deck, he realized nothing was his, not these looming green and white shadows around him, or the still-angry water. And especially not the hulking green earth behind them.

By that logic, too, not one thing he possessed was his — not the gun loaned to him, not his boots, not his own arms or legs. The earth was the possessor of all things, not him; he was just another speck flicking across the sun, throwing a momentary shadow across the water.

And as he contemplated that puniness he thought of Anna, thought of the soft way she had fallen into him, thought of her kiss and the touch of her lips. It was an antidote to his depression — the sunlight that pushed away the fog.

This wasn’t his war, but it had brought her to him, and for that reason alone — for that reason beyond fate or chance, beyond even his duty — he would fight this war. He would find her and free her. Because they couldn’t deny him anything. He was their hero.

The debris thickened as they began inland. Two soldiers were detailed to push some of the logs away. They began cheerfully enough, one of the men even laughing at some joke. But within moments one had slipped and fallen into the water, and by the time he was pulled out he was covered with bruises, and his arm seemed to have been badly sprained. There was no more laughter after that.

Finally, they reached the mouth of the stream that would take them up toward the bridge. They passed into what looked like a clear lake: the typhoon had swelled the stream far beyond its banks, and rather than the farm fields Zeus expected they passed telephone lines and the tops of trees. The shoreline had completely disappeared. Even the boat captain was amazed at how high the water level had risen.

“The water is much higher than normal,” Chaū explained, translating what the boat captain told him. “Higher even than during some rainy seasons. He expects that the area you wished to land will be flooded. It may be flooded all the way to the bridge, if the water is this high here.”

Ordinarily, that might not have been a problem, but their experience farther north made Zeus worry that the Chinese might have moved down to the bridge. He took out his map and conferred with the boat captain, trying to decide on an alternate spot.

“The captain says there is a stream that runs beneath the highway a little farther north,” said Chaū. He pointed on the map. “There is high land on the west side. If we landed there, we would be only about two miles south of the hamlet.”

“All right, let’s try it,” said Zeus.

They pulled across to the Stolkraft, and after a few words the PBR captain slid his vessel ahead, steering it through a patch of muddy water. They passed a set of wooden staves on the left, fence posts that separated small fish pens from the rice paddies behind them. The boundary had been erased.

A fork loomed ahead. The boat captain started spinning the wheel, pushing the PBR to port side. As he did, something shot through the air a few inches from Zeus.

Zeus’s first thought was that it was a swarm of insects; they’d passed several already. Then another part of his brain pushed him to his knees.

They were being fired on.

The soldier manning the forward machine gun started blasting the trees to the right. Soldiers on both boats started yelling and returning fire with a vengeance.

“Cease fire! Cease fire!” yelled Zeus, seeing that the Chinese had already stopped shooting. There had been one or two men at most. “You’re wasting ammo!”

He turned around and shouted at the captain. “Get us out of here! Get us upstream! Go! Go!”

The captain had already gunned the throttle. The PBR lurched forward, pushing toward a group of houses on the left. Meanwhile, the soldiers on both boats continued shooting. Zeus scanned the opposite shore, but saw nothing — no flashes, not even an area of cover where someone could be firing from.

“Chaū! Chaū! Get them to stop firing!” yelled Zeus. “Just get the boats up to a place to where we can get off. We’re wasting ammo.”

He looked behind him but couldn’t see Chaū. One of the sailors had grabbed a rifle and was standing next to the captain on Zeus’s left, firing wildly. From the wild look on his face Zeus knew he was simply firing from fear, without any target. He kept shooting until he’d run through the magazine.

Zeus saw Chaū crawling across the deck toward him. He ducked down and yelled in his ear.

Chaū yelled something from his crouch, but his voice was hoarse and even Zeus, right next to him, couldn’t hear.

“Tell me the words for ‘cease fire,’ “ yelled Zeus. “We need to get us ashore.”

Chaū’s voice was gone, and even leaning against Zeus’s ear, couldn’t make himself heard over the din. The boat lurched hard to port, then back, swerving wildly. Something clunked hard against the side, and Zeus thought they’d been hit by a shell or a grenade. But it had only been the top of a fence post, brushing against the hull.

Zeus rose, pulling Chaū with him.

“There’s a road ashore,” Zeus yelled at the captain. He pointed ahead, where he saw the crown of a dirt road rising above the water. “Get us there! Go!”

The sailor on the deck gun had run through his second belt. As he paused to reload, some of the soldiers on both boats heard the lull and stopped firing themselves. Finally, the firing died.

“We go ashore near the road! We get out here!” yelled Zeus. “Chaū — tell him. There! We land!”

Chaū squeezed over to the captain, cupping his hands to his mouth to try to amplify his weak voice. The captain altered his course, aiming just to the south of the road.

Zeus slipped to the stern of the PBR. The Stolkraft was behind them, separated by almost twenty yards and listing serious to starboard.

“Land the men ahead!” Zeus yelled. He spun around and tried to mime what he wanted them to do.

The Stolkraft tucked toward its port side, angling to come up next to the PBR. Zeus decided it would have to do.

He turned back to find Chaū. Just then, a black brick flicked overhead. Zeus started to react even before the brick materialized into a shell, exploding about a hundred yards beyond the two boats in a burst of water and mud.

“Get us to the shore!” he yelled.

A few seconds later, there was a whistling scream as a full volley of shells, seven or eight at least, flew overhead and crashed into the swollen stream behind them. Hoisted from at least two miles away, they were well off the mark, hitting the water three hundred yards behind the boats.

The next volley came close enough to splatter water over the PBR. The wake of the explosion shoved the boat sideways against a fallen tree. The vessel lurched, then stopped short. The motor revved but Zeus knew they were never going to reach the spot he’d picked out.

“We land, now!” he yelled. “Off the boat! Everyone onto land! Get away from the shells!”

He started for the side, thinking he would jump off onto the tree, then realized Chaū wasn’t with him. Turning back, he heard the whistle again, a brief — all-too-brief — high-pitch whine of the air unable to resist the inevitable rush of the Chinese shell. And then the next thing Zeus knew, he was face-first in a pile of wet green slime.

He pushed upright, only to fall into the water as the branches he’d lodged against gave way. Zeus rolled to his right, dug his foot down, and found ground just solid enough to support his weight.

Straightening, he heard something wallop the air behind him. It was a strange sound, one that didn’t correspond to anything he knew or had experienced before. Before he could decide what it was, the water rose up and hurled him forward, throwing him up over the tip of the tree into a patch of mud.

Zeus punched down with his arm and managed to get to his knees. Something grabbed his side — one of the soldiers. Zeus leaned down, hooking his arm beneath the man, and together they dragged themselves toward a clump of weeds. To Zeus’s surprise, the man had a missile box in his right hand.

Zeus turned, expecting there would be a whole group of soldiers with their gear struggling after him. But there was nothing, just a clear patch of flooded field. He couldn’t even see the boats. The felled tree he had landed on poked out of the water about forty feet away. Beyond that, the flooded stream rippled with white froth, extending sixty or seventy yards to a green bank.

Zeus’s AK-47 was still strapped over his shoulder. But the extra ammo he’d had in a small field bag was back somewhere on the boat; all he had now were two banana magazines, one loaded and the other taped to the first magazine.

“The road is up this way somewhere,” Zeus told the soldier who’d come out with him. “There are some buildings — let’s get up there and get our bearings.”

The weeds were actually a berm separating two fields. Though flooded, the next one was only ankle-deep with water. There was a pair of buildings at the far side, maybe thirty yards away. Zeus, the AK now in his right fist, began trotting in their direction.

The shelling had stopped.

The buildings were small farmhouses, similar to the hovels he’d seen before. Zeus pounded on the door of the nearest one.

The words he’d heard earlier came to him: “Xin châo!”

Hello! A strange thing to say in the middle of a war.

No one answered. He looked at the soldier, gesturing that he should say something as well. The man yelled something of his own, a different phrase, but again there was no answer.

They ran to the next building. This one had a window at the front, next to the door; Zeus knocked on the glass and yelled. When no one answered, he pounded on the door, then found it unlocked.

They went in. The front room was some sort of family room, with chairs and cupboards. There was a wet spot in the corner opposite the door, apparently where water had come up from below. They searched the house quickly — there were only three other rooms: a kitchen, a bedroom with a small bed and a crib, and a bath. All were deserted.

“Stay here,” Zeus told the soldier, gesturing. “I’ll be back with the others.”

He went outside, calmer now, heart no longer throbbing. The road they’d been headed toward was across another field directly in front of the house; he could see the crown running in a backward Z to the north.

There were more buildings on his left. From here they looked deserted.

Starting back toward the flooded paddy, Zeus tried to triangulate where the other boat would have been when he was thrown overboard. Somewhere to his right, he decided, and he angled that way, climbing over a row of half-submerged vegetation dividing the fields. Another cluster of houses, four or five them, sat along a flooded lane just beyond a sparse cropping of trees. These were much bigger houses than the one he had left the soldier at, a much more logical place to gather the missile teams. Zeus decided to head for them and check them out.

The closest building was a bamboo-roofed two-story house whose lower level was perched on stilts, apparently protection against flooding. A porch ran around this level, plantation style.

When he was ten yards away, he saw a man emerge from the lower level of the house, walking out of a basement room. Zeus raised his arm to wave at the man. The man froze, then threw himself down.

“Friend! Friend!” yelled Zeus, running toward him. He couldn’t remember the Vietnamese word.

“Friend!” he repeated, leaping over a small hedge. As he landed, he saw the man cower. Zeus raised his eyes, looking toward the corner of the building. There was another man there, and a second, and a third.

“Hey!” he yelled.

One of the men spun toward him. He had a uniform, and a gun. The rifle barked.

Zeus hit the dirt. The rifle was a QBZ-95 bullpup, easily identified as Chinese.

As was the uniform of the man aiming at him.

15

The lead ship, the Filipino Star, was less than a half mile off the port bow when Silas had her hailed via radio.

“We are an American warship, and we intend to inspect your cargo according to UN sanction 2014-3-2 forbidding the passage of military aid to the belligerents in Southeast Asia,” declared Silas. “Prepare to be boarded.”

The seas were still heavy, and sending a rigid hulled craft across would be risky. But with the sun up now and the last squall of the storm drifting northward, Silas would do so anyway. The McLane had no helicopter at the moment; it had been used to transport the SEALs and had not yet returned.

“No answer, Captain,” said the communications mate.

“Try it again, broadcasting on all channels,” said Silas. “We’ve been patient all night.”

Indeed, the merchant ships had sat off his bow now for quite a while. Since they weren’t moving forward and with the Chinese cruiser and her frigate nearly thirty miles to the east, Silas had bided his time.

Those were, after all, his orders. The merchant ships were just to the east of Vietnam’s coastal waters, in open seas. Technically, he could stop them whenever he wanted to inspect the manifest, but the admiral had directed that he wait until the ships were clearly embarked toward Hai Phong — which to Silas meant inside the twelve-mile limit.

But the cruiser had just changed course for him. It was time to bring things to a head.

After the message was repeated, Silas had the helmsman adjust his course to get a little closer. He wanted to make things as easy as possible for the boarding craft.

He had a sudden inspiration and ordered weapons to have the forward gun track across, making it very clear to the cargo vessel that he was prepared for business.

“Boarding party, stand by,” ordered Silas over the ship’s intercom system.

“Captain, the merchant vessel is turning off,” said the helmsman. “Moving northeastward, sir. All ships.”

A few seconds later, Lt. Commander Li reported that all of the Chinese merchant ships had changed direction. They were heading back toward China.

“Do you plan to pursue?” Li asked.

Silas wanted to. But his orders were to get the ships to leave peaceably if possible.

He could go ahead. But if they really were packed with men, his boarding party would be in a dangerous situation. In the end, he’d probably ending up sinking every damn ship around him, which was what he wanted to do. But he’d also lose some good men in the process.

“I intend to hold my position off Hai Phong,” he told Li. “If the Chinese want to just turn and run, that’s okay with me.”

Belatedly, Silas remembered that the admiral had directed that he contact him before issuing the Chinese an ultimatum.

Ooops.

He smiled to himself. Even when he didn’t do it on purpose, he seemed to drift toward insubordination.

“Arrange a secure video link to fleet,” he told his communications mate. “I’ll take it in my quarters, after I’ve changed.”

16

Neither Zeus nor the soldier who’d spotted him moved, both too surprised by the other to react.

A burst of gunfire cut through the weeds. The soldier ducked back around the corner. Zeus dropped to the ground.

The gunfire came from beyond the house. It was from AK-47s. Zeus guessed what was happening, though he couldn’t see — the Vietnamese soldiers had come ashore and stumbled on the men here.

He had their retreat cut off. Zeus edged to his right, trying to work himself into a position where he could get an angle on the Chinese soldiers if they stayed where they were. Dampness seeped up his pants legs, and from his chest around toward his back. The ground oozed with water.

The Chinese soldiers were at the front of the building, behind a barricade or a wall under the porch between the stilts. They didn’t seem to be returning fire.

Were they simply conserving ammo? Or were they out of bullets.

They ought to conserve their ammo, Zeus thought. Sure as hell they’re going to need it.

A low berm ran across the field a few yards away, disappearing into the water on the right. He got up, intending to throw himself against it, but just as he reached it he fell into a drainage ditch that ran along the other side. As he struggled to pull himself against the raised dirt, gunfire stoked up, from both sides this time. Zeus pushed along the ditch until he was parallel with the front of the house. He saw a green uniform moving beneath the porch and fired a quick burst; the man jerked almost upright, then slumped down.

There were two or three men behind him, maybe a fourth. Zeus fired a burst, but couldn’t see into the shadows to even know if he’d hit them.

They didn’t fire back. The Vietnamese stopped firing as well.

The truth was, the Chinese were in a good spot. They could probably hold their position for some time unless the Vietnamese rushed them. And in that case the Vietnamese were sure to take at least some losses.

They hesitated, probably calculating the odds. Zeus looked to his left, toward the back of the house. He might be able to backtrack, and come up from the other side. As long as the Chinese remained pinned down, he could probably sneak close enough to surprise them.

Should have thought of that earlier. Now it would be harder.

There was a shout from the area of the house. Zeus looked back. One of the Chinese soldiers had tied a piece of cloth to the end of his gun, and was waving it in front of his position.

The cloth was green, but it got the message across. They wanted to surrender.

What a break, thought Zeus.

He moved to his right, trying to get into a better position to cover the Chinese soldiers as they came out.

Someone shouted something from the Vietnamese side. There was an answer from the Chinese.

The man who had raised his gun to signal the surrender started moving along the front of the house, toward Zeus, holding the flag. The Vietnamese barked something. The man stopped, threw down the gun, and held his hands high.

Zeus was close enough to see the private insignia on his uniform.

The Vietnamese soldier said something else. The Chinese private began moving out. Two more men popped up and joined him. Their hands were high in the air.

“All right! All right!” yelled Zeus, wanting the Vietnamese to know he was there. “I’m here! It’s Zeus! The American!”

He rose slowly, his AK-47 pointed in the direction of the house. He was ready to drop; he glanced to his right, trying to see if the Vietnamese saw him.

There were two Vietnamese soldiers moving forward in the field in front of the house, sloshing through the water. Four more men were behind them. All had their guns trained on the three Chinese soldiers.

One of the men had been wounded; his arm hung down.

The Chinese soldiers waited. One of them glanced at the body of the man Zeus had shot. He lay facedown in the mud, clearly dead.

They were kids, eighteen maybe at most. They were shivering, probably with fright.

One of the Vietnamese soldiers told them to drop on the ground, and they complied.

Zeus moved to his left, peering toward the bottom of the house to make sure there was no one left inside. He glanced at the Vietnamese soldiers, waved to make sure they saw him, then cautiously moved under the house, his finger resting ever so lightly against the trigger.

It was empty.

He started to relax, backing out.

Something flashed on his right.

He turned in time to see the Vietnamese soldiers who’d come forward to accept the Chinese surrender lace the prisoners with several dozen rounds.

There was nothing, no sound except the bullets leaving the gun. Zeus heard nothing — not the cries of the boys killed, not the tears of their betrayal, not the unrequited hatred of their murderers.

Zeus fell to his knee, unsure what exactly was happening, ready if there were more Chinese, if it was a trap. He told himself not to fire until he saw a target.

He reminded himself that bullets were more critical than fear.

The Vietnamese were shouting. Zeus remained on his knee. Finally, he heard someone yelling in Vietnamese-accented English.

“Clear!”

Zeus rose slowly. Two Vietnamese soldiers ran up, nodded at him, then went into the underside of the building. One fired into the body Zeus had already killed.

“Don’t waste bullets,” Zeus told him.

He walked toward the front of the building. Eight soldiers were standing near the bodies of the dead Chinese.

“What the hell happened?” demanded Zeus. “Why did you fire?”

“Major Murph!” said one of the team leaders, a sergeant. “Major Murph, you found us.”

“Why did you shoot them?”

“Chinese.”

“Yeah, but they were surrendering. Did one of them fire?”

The sergeant looked at him as if he didn’t understand. Maybe he didn’t.

“You killed them when they were surrendering,” said Zeus.

The man shook his head lightly, not comprehending. It was possible someone had gotten nervous and pressed his trigger. Maybe there were other extenuating circumstances. It was too late to undo now.

Zeus felt his stomach grip him from the inside.

“How many of us?” he said, struggling to stay calm. He raised his hand and made a circular gesture. “How many?”

The sergeant said something in Vietnamese.

“Is this all?” Zeus asked. He circled again with his hand.

“All. Yes.”

“We have a man in that house, over there.” Zeus pointed beyond the field. “Our man.” He tapped his chest. “Do you understand?”

“Our man. One.”

“Right. Hook up with him, and meet me near the road,” said Zeus. He tried miming it with his hand. “Okay? I’m going down to the water and see if I can find anyone else. Where is Major Chaū?”

“Chaū?” The sergeant shook his head grimly.

“By the road. Meet me. Don’t kill our guy.”

“Yes,” said the sergeant.

The field was separated from the stream by a row of trees and submerged rocks. Zeus slipped through the trees, trying to see where he was.

A boot floated in the water nearby. It turned on the current, revealing the hacked edge of a lower leg.

Zeus steeled himself, balancing amid the trees. He could see the semisubmerged hulk of the PBR ten yards away, on his left. Two bodies floated in the water near it.

Both sailors.

Slinging his rifle over his shoulder, Zeus shimmied up one of the trees, trying to get a better view. He could see at least one other body beyond the PBR. It was a soldier’s.

Chaū?

Zeus hugged the tree and turned in the other direction, looking for the Stolkraft. He found it grounded on some debris about thirty yards downstream. A shell blast had broken the hull in two, and the sides bowed up, as if the boat were a deck of cards waiting to be shuffled.

Zeus counted three bodies on the deck. Several missile containers, and ammunition boxes were there as well. A few were stuck in the mud nearby. They could all be salvaged.

Zeus pushed himself higher on the tree, looking toward the opposite shore. He saw no sign of the Chinese there. There was a rise a little more than a mile beyond. He guessed that there was a roadway through or near the swamp, and that the Chinese had gathered their tanks there. A scout near the water would have seen the boats, and sent back information about them. Or maybe he’d just fired to provoke the Vietnamese and alert the tanks.

The theory gave him a working target. They’d move up in that direction and look for the tanks — or whatever it was that had hit them.

Zeus shimmied down the tree trunk, his legs and palms scraping though the trunk was smooth.

As he started back up through the field, he heard the whine of vehicles moving in the distance. He put his head down and started to run. He crossed to the right side of the house, running past the bodies of the Chinese soldiers, who’d been left where they fell.

A mistake, thought Zeus. If the Chinese saw them, they’d know exactly what had happened.

But there was no time to do anything about it. The ground was shaking with the approach of the armored vehicles, moving on the dirt road in the field beyond the houses. Zeus ran up along the woods to the opening where he had crossed earlier. He was about five or six steps away when he heard the swoosh of a Kornet missile streaking across the open yard.

A loud crack followed, as if lightning had hit a massive redwood and felled it with one burst. A second missile zipped into the air, but this time there was no explosion. Instead, a Chinese ZTZ99’s 120mm began to fire, tossing shells in the direction of the house where Zeus had left the soldier.

Another missile — an explosion, small-arms gunfire, a shout and a scream.

The air reverberated, the ground shaking as the Vietnamese engaged the force of tanks that had moved down the road. Zeus, realizing that he would not be able to run across to the buildings without being caught in the crossfire, changed course and headed toward his left, hoping to come up around the Chinese force.

He remembered the crates of missiles lying back at the shore, and considered going to grab them, but it would take considerable time to fish out even one, and he might be more useful in the meantime. At a minimum, he had to know what he was up against.

Zeus sprinted across the field, crossed a muddy lane, then circled around a small shed that bordered the road before finally reaching a point where he could look in the direction of the firefight. Four Chinese tanks, very closely packed together in a column, sat in front of the house. Smoke billowed from the lead tank. Black smoke and gray steam furled behind it, from at least one other Z99 that Zeus couldn’t see. The others were firing their machine guns in a steady hail, the sound a kind of steel-tap chorus.

The house was engulfed in flames and smoke.

Zeus laid down flat and began easing across the field on his belly, trying to get a better angle. After about ten yards of crawling through the mud he came to a water-filled ditch. Slipping into it, he found himself in water almost to his neck. Holding his rifle just above the surface of the water, he followed the ditch as it slanted behind the tanks’ position, moving away as it drew parallel to them. The depth of the ditch decreased as he went, until finally when he was even with the tanks he had to kneel to avoid being seen.

One of the four tanks was still firing. The empty building was on fire as well. If the Vietnamese were still alive, he couldn’t see them, or hear their guns.

More vehicles were moving in the distance, on his left, coming to join the fight.

The smartest thing to do at this point — aside from running away — was to backtrack, get some of the missiles, and get into position to either take this tank out or, more likely, ambush whatever was coming up as reinforcements. Zeus turned and looked back down the trench, calculating whether it might not be easier to back out here and make a wide circle back.

It would certainly be drier. Zeus looked back to make sure the Z99’s turret was buttoned up. When he didn’t see anyone on the machine gun, he climbed out of the ditch and crawled straight back, aiming for a row of foliage separating the field from another. He reached the bushes and turned around, got his bearings again, and started to run along the brush to angle back toward the water. He kept his eyes on the tank and the road some fifty or sixty yards away.

He’d gone no more than a few steps when the top of the tank popped open. Zeus dropped down immediately. By the time he looked up, the tank commander had grabbed the machine gun on the turret and begun firing toward the two burning houses.

If he was thinking logically, Zeus might have seen this as an opportunity to get away — the man was focused on a target one hundred and eighty degrees in the other direction.

But Zeus wasn’t thinking logically. Instead, he saw a threat to the men he’d been with, and he reacted instinctively, jumping up through the brush and starting across the field. With a different, more familiar weapon, he might have fired from the brush itself — fifty yards was not a particularly difficult shot with an M-16 or even an AK-47 for that matter, so long as the shooter was used to the weight and pull of the gun, and the weapon itself was in good repair. But Zeus had little experience with an AK, and he’d already seen that the weapon could be unreliable except at very close range.

He stopped ten yards from the tank.

The Chinese tank commander hunkered over his machine gun. The man ceased firing and straightened, looking over the field to see where his enemy was hiding.

Now, thought Zeus. He dropped to his knee, almost too close to have an angle.

But he did have an angle, and he did have a shot, dead-on in the middle of the iron sights.

Zeus pressed the trigger.

Nothing happened.

He tried again. The gun had been fouled in the water.

He cleared, tried again. Nothing.

In the next second, the sound of a steam engine about to blow rose in his ears; the noise merged into a loud screech and boom. One of the Vietnamese had fired an AT-14 at the tank.

By the time Zeus heard the noise of the missile strike on the tank, he’d already pitched to the ground. The AT-14 hit the bottom of the turret on the left side of the tank, away from Zeus. The missile half-penetrated the armor as it exploded, rocking the top upward as if it were bottle opener popping a soda can that had been in the sun all day.

Steam exploded from the fissure. The lower half of the tank thumped down hard against the ground, shaking it in a rumble that reverberated through Zeus’s chest. The top of the tank peeled back, metal spitting off.

The tank commander was blasted into pieces. His right hand and forearm flew in a somersault across the air, landing a few inches from Zeus’s face. Zeus saw the fingers in front of him, extending from the palm as if beseeching God for mercy.

He jerked his head away, closing his eyes involuntarily.

Someone shouted behind him. He was caught off guard, still stunned from the vision of the hand.

They shouted again. He didn’t know what they were saying.

Was it Vietnamese, or Chinese?

Only when Zeus closed his hand did he realize he didn’t have his gun; he’d lost it when he threw himself down. It would have been useless anyway.

He started to spread his arms. Someone shouted, then kicked him down, face-first into the ground.

He rolled to his back, raising his arms to ward off another blow. A rifle was in his face.

A Chinese rifle. The soldier, uniform battered, helmet missing, yelled something in Chinese. Zeus shook his head, trying to show that he didn’t understand.

The man thrust the rifle barrel at Zeus. If he’d had a bayonet, he would have pierced him in the heart.

Zeus started to push himself backward, not sure what the man wanted him to do. The Chinese soldier screamed at him again. Blood trickled from the man’s temple. His face was bright red, as if he’d been burned, as if he was still burning. His eyes were wild and open; he could have been a caricature of hell.

“Séi!” the soldier yelled in Chinese.

He continued, telling Zeus that he was a dead man, that there was no hope or escape. He screamed the same word over and over, but the one word was an entire paragraph, a long demand.

“Séi!”

He wanted to see Zeus’s fear. He wanted him to run before he killed him. For it wasn’t Zeus he was going to shoot; it was his own terror and dread. The horror of battle had unnerved him.

Zeus had no way out. The Chinese soldier prodded Zeus with the barrel of the gun, smacking it against his chin.

If he tries it again, I can grab it, he thought.

But there was a second thought: Maybe he wants me to stand so he can take me prisoner.

He knew from the man’s expression that this couldn’t be true — the man was possessed, acting according to some logic only his unhinged mind understood. But even so, Zeus wanted the second idea to be true — it offered some hope.

The man yelled his word again. Losing hope that Zeus would do what he said, the soldier drew back his gun and aimed at the American.

“Séi!”

There was loud crack, a single shot.

To Zeus’s amazement, the Chinese soldier fell down to his right, so close to him that blood splattered across his face.

“Major Murphy,” croaked Chaū in his hoarse voice, running up and standing over him. He was huffing. “I am glad you are still alive.”

17

Ric Kerfer folded his arms in front of his chest and took a step backward. In all his time in the Navy, he had never seen so many goddamn weapons gathered in one place before. The dock was literally overrun with boxes and crates, and the warehouse behind it was already half-packed. All manner of Russian ordinance was stacked all over the pier. There were bullets and shells and seven different varieties of antitank weapons. There were AT-14 missiles and jellied petroleum for flamethrowers. There were five-hundred-pound bombs, and cases for SA-7s. Most the munitions were older than he was, but the sheer amount of them was damn impressive.

Too impressive. He only had the single C-130 to get all this crap to Vietnam.

What to do?

The Filipinos he’d recruited as stevedores looked at him anxiously. It would have helped if someone told him what the damn priorities were. Good ol’ Braney hadn’t given him a clue.

He’d taken antitank weapons on the first trip. But you could never have too many.

Kerfer began walking down the row of crates. He’d elected to study Russian at one of his schools way back when, but the truth was, he didn’t remember crap from those days, and the Cyrillic letters might just as well have been inkblots.

Besides, they all claimed to be things they weren’t, like kitchen utensils. One of the Russians had given him a sheaf of papers with the key, but it was all confused.

Kerfer stopped at a crate he thought held more AT-14s. When he opened it, he saw Boltoks — missiles that were launched from tanks.

“Take these for the plane,” he told his stevedores. “Two boxes, no, four. We’ll keep the numbers even.”

A little bit of everything. That was the key. Definitely throw in some artillery shells. Army guys always like that.

And as soon as he had everything picked out, he’d call for another plane.

Or maybe twenty.

18

Chaū had been separated from the others when the boats were hit, falling into the water and then swimming or floating — he wasn’t sure which — north. By the time he got himself together, the other firefight was already underway. He slipped down through the fields, arriving at the houses after they had been destroyed. There he’d found Sergeant Angkor hunkered over the last missile, waiting for the smoke to clear so he’d get a shot. They’d stalked the tank, then found Zeus by accident.

“There are more tanks coming,” Zeus told Chaū. “Hear them? Do you have more missiles?”

“That was the last,” said Chaū.

“There are more cases by the water,” said Zeus. “Let’s get them.”

He started to run, then looked back when he realized they weren’t following.

“What’s wrong, Chaū?”

“We have wounded.”

“We’ll come back for them,” said Zeus. “We’re not leaving them.”

Chaū and Angkor began talking, apparently debating what to do. Zeus didn’t wait. He started trotting again, then running, crossing the field and heading back toward the shore where he had seen the floating boxes. He was soaked, his uniform and face covered with mud and blood.

As Zeus approached the shoreline, he noticed a narrow lane running to the water, which he hadn’t seen before. It took him a little to the east, out of his way, but the path was high and mostly dry all the way out to the water. There it gave way to boulders and carefully positioned logs.

Three of the missile cases had washed in. Zeus grabbed them, sliding them onto the path. There were four other boxes nearby, all half-submerged in the water. He took a step toward the closest, and immediately felt his leg sinking. He pushed back and fell rump first onto the rocks.

The rocks extended in a kind of submerged ledge to the left. He stepped out on it tentatively, then worked his way sideways a few feet until he was almost parallel with one of the boxes. He reached out and dragged it up through the water, pulling it to land.

He was eyeing another when Chaū burst onto the shoreline through the weeds about thirty yards on his left. Zeus yelled to him, and waved, signaling that he should loop around and come up through the path.

“There’s a path,” he said. “Come out this way; it’s drier.”

Zeus went back to work, fetching out two more boxes by the time Chaū reached him.

“Where’s the sergeant?” Zeus asked.

“With the men. We must go back.”

They had five missiles, but no launchers, and no launcher boxes that he could see. Zeus went back out onto the small ledge, but couldn’t reach the other two boxes. He waded into the muck, then stepped forward onto one of the boxes. He pulled the other out and gave it to Chaū. The one beneath his feet was too embedded to retrieve.

“There aren’t any more launchers,” Zeus told the major. “We’re going to have to go back to the houses to get one.”

“Yes,” said Chaū, his voice still hoarse. “That’s where Angkor is.”

Zeus opened the boxes and, by stripping away some of the protective interior material, managed to get three in each box. That gave them only one box to carry apiece.

“It would be better to attack the tanks from the far side of the road,” said Zeus. “We can move back a lot easier. But we need a launcher.”

“Maybe we should not attack them,” said Chaū. “We are so outnumbered.”

Chaū’s point was utterly logical, yet it caught Zeus by surprise. The only options he was even considering involved the location of the attack.

“What happened to your phone?” Chaū asked.

“I lost it in the water. We’re not getting any help here anyway.” Zeus pointed in the direction of the smoldering ruins. “Where is Angkor and the launcher?”

“We were right in front of the smaller house,” said Chaū. “There was a ditch.”

“All right. We’ll come up from behind the houses.”

Zeus led the way back toward the smoldering ruins. The air smelled like burning wood and dead fish.

The tanks had stopped, somewhere up to the right, out of sight around a bend. It was impossible to tell from the sound exactly how far away they were, though Zeus assumed they were very close.

“We have to watch for scouts,” Zeus told Chaū. “They have infantry with them. Where’s Angkor?”

“He was to meet me here.”

“Angkor!” Zeus yelled. “Sergeant Angkor!”

He turned to Chaū.

“Can you call him?”

Chaū tried, but his voice was still far too hoarse.

“Give me the words,” said Zeus.

“Just say his name.”

Zeus tried again, but he got no answer.

“He must have moved to a safer spot when he heard the engines,” said Zeus.

Passing the hovels, Zeus saw two bodies lying a short distance from it. He veered in their direction, dropping to one knee to stop next to them. Both men were covered with blood, their eyes glazed.

He wanted a gun. Neither man had one.

Back on his feet, he started after Chaū. Something moved on the other side of the road, a short distance from one of the blown-out tanks. It looked like a gust of wind, knocking through the tall weeds. Zeus eyed it as he ran, mind and sight not entirely coordinating. Green materialized beneath the weeds as they popped up: Chinese soldiers, wearing the equivalent of gillie suits.

One of them started firing. Zeus leapt the rest of the distance into a ditch near the road, clutching his missile case to his chest like a gigantic football. He twisted on his shoulder as he went in, spinning and landing sideways.

Chaū and Angkor were already there, about ten yards away. Angkor fired a single burst, then another. The Chinese responded with a full fusillade as Zeus scrambled over.

“How many?” he asked.

Chaū shook his head. The ditch was wide but shallow, with a foot and a half of water at the bottom. It ran a few feet from the road, possibly to help drain it during heavy rains. Two wounded Vietnamese soldiers sat against the side to the left. One looked as if he had already died; the other didn’t look too far behind.

Besides a single AT-14 launcher, they had Angkor’s AK-47 and a box of ammo — nowhere near enough to hold off the soldiers across from them, let alone whatever vehicles were around the bend, waiting for these guys to tell them what was up.

Zeus leaned against the side of the ditch, trying to gauge the distance from where it ended to the nearest tank. The vehicle was perhaps ten yards from the shallow end.

“I have an idea,” he told Chaū. “Start firing when I’m at the far end of the ditch. Get their attention.”

“What?” asked Chaū. But Zeus had already started away, leaving his missiles. He scrambled until the ditch became too shallow, then crawled on his side, making sure he didn’t rise high enough to be seen. He glanced back, and gave Chaū a thumbs-up.

Angkor began firing. Zeus waited until he heard the Chinese respond, then threw himself forward, sprinter style, from a four-point stance. He ran behind the tank and sprawled on the ground, unsure whether he’d been seen.

The gunfire died. Zeus curled himself as tightly as possible and scurried around to the second tank, reasoning that it would be harder for the Chinese to see him there. He slunk around the side, then climbed gingerly up to the tank’s turret, crouching by the side.

The hatchway was still locked though the front of the tank had been destroyed. He reached across for the machine gun, but couldn’t quite reach it from behind the turret without exposing himself to fire.

One of the soldiers popped up in the field and took aim at Angkor and Chaū. Zeus boosted himself upward, grabbed the gun, and swung the barrel in the man’s direction. He stabbed his finger at the trigger and fired. The gun jumped as the bullets flew from the barrel, flying high and wide from their intended targets. Zeus pulled himself up behind the machine gun, bracing his knees against the turret. He fired again, this time lacing the field where the soldiers were. Mud and bits of green and brown leaves flew into the air.

He let off the trigger, waiting for the soldiers to show themselves amid the thick grass and weeds.

Something moved about thirty yards ahead. Zeus swung the barrel over and began firing again. The stream of bullets seemed to just start when suddenly the gun snapped and the stream ended — he’d run out the belt.

He couldn’t see another. He raised himself higher, looking for an ammo box.

Something flew from the area he’d been firing at.

A grenade.

Zeus dove forward between the two tanks as it sailed overhead. The grenade landed behind the third tank, which had stalled crosswise in the road. It didn’t explode at first, and for that long second Zeus considered whether he should have tried to grab it and throw it back. Then there was a sharp boom and a flash, most of the explosion muffled by the tank.

As Zeus hunkered down, he glimpsed a boot a few yards away. One of the Chinese tankers had fallen there; a gun poked its nose out from under his body.

The gun was a small Chinese Type 79. Intended mostly for internal security forces, it was a 7.62 lightweight submachine gun occasionally used by tank crews as an emergency weapon. Its small box was full.

Another grenade sailed through the air. This one, too, overshot. Zeus pulled the submachine gun next to his chest and ran from the tanks into the field behind the Chinese soldiers. The grenade exploded as he ran. He counted to three, then belly flopped to the ground inelegantly but in time to avoid being seen.

He could hear the Chinese talking. They were between ten and fifteen yards away, to his left.

Throw another grenade, boys. Throw one.

They obliged. Zeus saw the soldier rise, then drop down immediately as it left his hand. Like most soldiers, he was inordinately fixed on the device’s explosive power, and took no chances once he let it go.

Zeus figured he was ten yards away at most, and directly ahead of him.

As the grenade exploded, Zeus jumped up and began firing. Sweeping three quick bursts into the grass, he ran to the spot where the soldier had ducked down.

Someone moved. Zeus fired another burst, then went down as gunfire erupted on his left. He pulled his legs under him, curled on the ground, and waited.

He wasn’t sure how many bullets he had left in the gun, but it couldn’t be many.

Someone groaned a few feet away. It must be the grenade thrower, Zeus thought. He scanned through the weeds, not sure where the others were. He tried to quiet his breath, listening, but he could get no clue either from sound or sight.

Slowly, Zeus shifted his weight in the direction of the man he had gunned down. He leaned forward onto his elbows and knees, crawling in the man’s direction.

The groans got louder. There was another — there were at least two men wounded here.

Farther back in the field, someone shouted something in Chinese. The moaning got louder, but there was no answer.

Zeus pushed through the weeds until he saw a dark-green blotch in front of him — one of the soldiers. The man was sprawled on the ground, eyes gaping. Zeus’s bullets had caught him in the throat. He’d drowned in his own blood.

The soldier had a Type 95 assault rifle still in his hands. Zeus pried it from his fingers, then pulled two spare magazines from his belt. Stuffing the boxes into his pants, Zeus crawled away. He held the rifle in his left hand, the submachine gun in his right.

The groans were getting louder. But now there was a new sound: tanks again, engines revving.

Huddling against the wet weeds, Zeus crawled in the direction of the nearest moan. It was the grenade thrower, who’d been hit in the side of the face and arm. He lay on his back, blood seeping around him in a pool. He blinked his eyes when he saw Zeus.

Zeus crawled next to him. He couldn’t see the man’s rifle, but he had a sidearm in a holster. Zeus, covering him with the rifle, let go of the submachine gun and reached to the holster. He undid the catch and pulled out a small semiautomatic pistol.

The man tried to speak, but the only sound he could manage was a choking cough. There was a green canvas bag a few feet away. It looked almost like a shopping bag, bulging slightly with fruit.

There were three grenades inside.

There were several Chinese soldiers still alive nearby, scattered in the field, but Zeus wasn’t exactly sure where, and without getting up and drawing their fire — a dubious proposition if they were close — he had no way of finding out. He decided to simply throw the grenades in a spread left to right.

Someone whispered in Chinese on his right. Zeus tried to guess at the words. Was the man calling to a comrade? Or was he talking to someone next to him?

The man whispered again, a little louder.

Zeus groaned in response. The whisperer said something else, a little more urgently.

Zeus didn’t answer. The brush nearby rustled — the soldier was crawling toward him, assuming he was a fallen comrade. He was very close — only a few feet away.

The man’s face poked through a clump of tall strands of grass. He wore small round glasses barely large enough to cover the whites of his eyes.

He had a pistol in his hand.

He tilted his head, puzzled when he saw Zeus.

Zeus pressed on the trigger of the submachine gun. It flew upward, his one hand not sufficient leverage against the blowback. Several bullets passed into his enemy’s forehead.

Caught between surprise and understanding, the man seemed to hover in the air a moment before collapsing, dead.

Zeus dropped the submachine gun and the rifle, and grabbed a grenade. He pulled the pin — it was smoother than he thought — and threw it to his left, arcing it upward as if throwing a long pass downfield. He grabbed a second and did the same.

The pin on the third stuck. He pulled but it wouldn’t budge. He tried again, then ducked as the first grenade exploded. Letting go of the grenade, he took hold of the rifle as the second exploded. He rose to his knee and doused the field with the entire contents of the magazine. His fingers fumbled over the unfamiliar weapon as he changed the box. Slamming it home after what seemed hours, he poured on the gunfire, once more running through the magazine.

There was no return fire.

Zeus rose tentatively, looking over the field. He stood, then turned slowly.

“Chaū!” he called.

“Down!” came a voice. It was Angkor’s.

Zeus started to turn toward it, then realized what the warning meant: an armored vehicle was rounding the corner ahead on the left. It was a Type 77-2, a tracked armored personnel carrier.

A missile shot from the ditch where Angkor and Chaū were hiding. The front of the troop carrier vanished in a cloud of smoke and dust. Zeus stared at it, forgetting for a moment where he was, let alone understanding that the shrapnel from the hit could kill if it reached him. The vehicle slumped behind the cloud, smoke furling to either side. Finally Zeus remembered the danger, and pulled up the assault rifle, ready to shoot at the soldiers escaping. But there were none — the missile had penetrated the interior and detonated inside, obliterating the passengers.

A second vehicle appeared behind the first, to its right, moving up the shoulder of the road. Zeus retreated to his left, back into the field. He threw himself down as he heard the whiz of the missile leaving the trench. The AT-14 hit home before he reached the ground, crushing through the front of the carrier with an unworldly sound.

There were more vehicles behind them. Two troop trucks — Zeus could hear the engines revving as the vehicles went off the road, trying to avoid the broken APCs.

He’d thrown himself down near the body of one of the soldiers he’d killed earlier. An ammo box sat a few feet away.

It held bullets for a machine gun. Zeus couldn’t see the weapon until he noticed a thick clump of grass about five feet away. The grass was camouflage, wrapped around the barrel and the main works.

He turned the weapon on its tripod, bringing it to bear on the troop trucks clearing the APCs. Situating a belt of bullets into the feed, he sighted and began firing. He was too low at first, then overcorrected, spewing bullets wildly around the field. Letting off the trigger, he pulled his body closer to the weapon and tried again. This time he was accurate enough to get a stream of slugs into the engine compartment of the lead truck. It continued a short ways, coasting on momentum until suddenly it stopped and began rolling backward down the slight incline it had climbed. By that time, Zeus had laced the rear of the truck with bullets and put a few into the cab of the second vehicle.

The belt ran through. Zeus fumbled with the cocking mechanism, trying to pull up the cover assembly to accept a new belt. The troops who’d been in the trucks were peppering the field with gunfire. A burst hit only a few inches away. Zeus left the gun and pushed himself face-first into the ground as bullets hit all around him.

Still under fire, he crawled next to the machine gun, reaching up and trying to reload it blind. Finally, he gingerly fit a round against the stop and got the cover down. But a fresh volley of bullets made him lurch backward.

An AT-14 spit from the ditch across the way. It slammed home into a vehicle Zeus couldn’t see, though he heard the explosion.

The launch gave the Chinese soldiers a new target. As soon as Zeus realized he wasn’t being fired at anymore, he pulled himself back to the machine gun. He laced the field, covering it with bullets.

Either one of the Chinese soldiers set off a smoke grenade for protection or one of the tracer rounds in the machine gun set fire to the grass. Smoke began rising from the Chinese position, a thick curtain of it.

Something moved at the far edge of the smoke on Zeus’s right, near the bend in the road. Zeus aimed and began firing; within a few shots the machine gun choked, jammed. Reaching to clear it, he felt something slice against his neck, hot and sharp. The next thing he knew, he was on his back, bullets whizzing overhead.

He didn’t realize he’d been shot until he felt something wet drip across his neck bone. He reached and touched it, then brought his hand close to his face. His fingers were black with dirt and the oil and grime from the gun. The blood was black as well, a strange shade of grim.

He put his fingers near his neck gingerly, then pulled them away as soon as he felt the sting.

I’m not really hurt, he told himself. It’s like sunburn.

19

Cho Lai could barely contain his anger as the report continued. The plan to sneak troops into Hai Phong harbor had been thwarted by a single American destroyer, which had outmaneuvered one of the best ships in the Chinese fleet and managed to call the Chinese bluff. Meanwhile, the assault down the eastern coast of Vietnam, designed to reach the harbor at the same time the ships did, had stalled because of the storm. They might not reach the city for days.

The premier rose from the briefing table. The general at the podium stopped talking in mid-sentence. Cho Lai glared at each man in turn.

“We have stalled because of incompetence and cowardice!” he thundered. “I will have a new commander!”

He turned to his defense minister.

“Get my nephew from the front.”

“Colonel Sun is only a colonel,” said Lo Gong softly. “If he were put in charge — ”

“I have work to do,” said Cho Lai. He waved his hand. “You are all dismissed. Leave!”

20

A train rushed over Zeus, the undercarriage and all its connected pipes and wires whipping a few inches from his face. A jet followed, wheels an inch from his brow. The world stormed by, flashing its color and speed.

He smelled the earth, the water, the thick brown soil around him. He smelled the soldiers he’d shot, lying dead or dying nearby.

It’s just sunburn, he told himself, reaching again for his wound.

Just sunburn. Get up.

Get up!

He turned slowly onto his elbow, pushing up and looking for his machine gun. Something grabbed him and threw him down, twisting him over.

It was Chaū.

“Major Murphy — stay down!” gasped Chaū, his voice even hoarser than before.

“Okay,” Zeus muttered.

Angkor was nearby, rifling through the bodies of the Chinese for ammo. He yelled something to Chaū, who rose, then lobbed a grenade.

It didn’t explode. There was a hissing sound instead.

Smoke.

“Come on!” barked Chaū in his hoarse voice. He grabbed at Zeus and started pulling him. “Stay low.”

Fresh automatic rifle fire filled the air. But it was off the mark, closer to the road and the ditch. They were moving to the west, toward a line of trees.

“When we make the jungle, we can rest,” said Chaū.

“Okay,” said Zeus, pumping his legs as his strength returned.

“Major, are you with us?” asked Chaū.

Zeus, resting against a tree, looked up. “Yeah.”

“Your neck is bleeding.”

Chaū bent over and pulled the collar of Zeus’s uniform away. The wound had already scabbed, the blood coagulating with the cloth, and it stung.

“Ah — it’s okay, stop,” said Zeus.

“Sorry.”

“Is the bullet in there?” asked Zeus.

Chaū leaned close. “I don’t think so. It’s all red.”

Another close call. Sooner or later, his luck was going to run out.

Angkor had a small first-aid kit in one of his pants pockets. They took a large gauze bandage that came packed with ointment and taped it to Zeus’s neck. The collar pulled some skin with it as they got the bandage in place. Blood trickled from the wound.

“I’ll be all right,” said Zeus.

“What should we do now?” asked Chaū.

“Where are the Chinese?”

“Back in the field. They are firing at the house. They think we are still there. Over a hundred men,” added Chaū. “We destroyed three APCs, killed many.”

“All right. We should get out of here.”

Zeus rubbed his face, then reached into his pocket for his map. It was sodden. He unfolded it, examining the roads, trying to remember where exactly they were.

“There should be a village in that direction about two miles,” said Zeus, pointing due west. “If we can get there, this road looks like it will take us to the road General Tri’s tanks were using to get south. You see?”

He showed Chaū the map.

“We have three more missiles,” said Chaū. “Should we make another attack?”

“They’ll trap us in these woods if we make the attack from here,” said Zeus, pulling himself to his feet. “They’ll get south of us on the road and come around. We’ll be trapped.”

Chaū looked disappointed.

“The best thing to do, is wait a little while,” said Zeus. “But not here. I think we can swing a little more to the north, cross the stream, and keep going until we’re north of the hamlet we were going to hit. We’ll attack them there. If we can take them by surprise, hit a few vehicles, and then run west, they’ll never catch us. We may even be able to hook up with the others.”

“Yes,” said Chaū. “It is a good plan.”

They walked for over an hour, Zeus in the lead with the map. He had the Chinese assault rifle and several magazines that Angkor had pilfered from the dead. Chaū was next in line, carrying a Chinese gun he, too, had found, along with the box of missiles. Angkor had the rear, hauling the launcher as well as a pair of rifles and a bag of extra ammo.

The day turned more humid with the sun. While the jungle kept them in shade, between the humidity and the insects Zeus felt as if he were being pelted and pulled with every step he took. The thick vegetation snapped at him, petty lashes to add to the persecution.

A hollow hunger bit at his stomach. At times his eyes drooped toward the bottom of their sockets, his fatigue welling up.

To keep himself going, he thought of Anna. And yet thinking of Anna made things even more difficult. She was a prisoner.

“The water ahead must be deep,” said Chaū as they walked toward the creek. “I can hear it.”

“Yeah,” muttered Zeus.

The stream had overflowed its banks. It rushed through the jungle, flooding a good eight or ten feet up into the trees on either side. Zeus paused when he reached the edge. The water’s path was wide but not particularly deep.

“Should we cross?” asked Chaū. His voice had recovered to the point that he could speak normally without too much strain.

“I wonder if we could float down the stream,” said Zeus. “We could hit them at the bridge instead of the hamlet.”

“What?” asked Chaū.

“If we lashed a few logs together, and just kind of floated down, you think it would work?”

“What would we use?”

“Just logs, and we could make some rope from the grass. They wouldn’t expect us to come down the stream.”

Chaū said nothing. It was an outrageously impractical plan — a dream, really. Zeus was losing his mind.

“There are some rocks here,” said Zeus, wading into the water. “We’ll get to the other side and move down.”

The water was only a foot deep, except in the middle, where it quickly dropped another two feet. But they were able to scramble across without their weapons getting wet.

Building a log raft a la Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn — no way. But a canoe was perfect.

“Look at that!” said Zeus, shouting as he spotted the boat pushed against a pair of trees upstream.

It was a wooden boat, slightly battered and small, but perfect.

A dream, even. But it was real.

They loaded the missiles and launcher inside. Both of the long oars were missing, but it was easy to tug it along downstream. Chaū, the lightest, sat inside, while Zeus and Angkor pulled it along. Snakes slithered by, and once Zeus swore he saw the eyes of a crocodile.

Swarms of flies buzzed around them. Every so often Zeus had to let go of the boat to swat at them. The only thing that really worked was to dip under the water to get away, and even that provided only a temporary respite.

“Bitchin’ flies,” he said to Chaū.

“Maybe they are Chinese.”

Angkor said something.

“We are getting close,” Chaū told Zeus. “Listen.”

They stopped. Zeus held his breath, but heard nothing. Then through the jungle came a familiar hum on the breeze.

Motors. Tanks or APCS.

“We’re getting very close,” he said.

Ten minutes later, they were close enough to feel the vibration of the motors in the air. They were about two miles farther north of the spot where they’d fought earlier in the day — much closer than Zeus had reckoned from the map.

A long highway bridge spanned the swamp. Peering from the trees at the bankside, Zeus could make out a quartet of trusses arching above the swollen water below the roadway. There were perhaps a dozen vehicles on the south side of the bridge — and what looked like an endless armada on the north.

“We can have our pick,” said Chaū, standing next to him.

“I have a better idea,” said Zeus. “Let’s take out the bridge.”

21

Among the great difficulties for an American seeking to help Vietnamese were the ironies involved. Harland Perry was surrounded by them.

Trying to rally the populace against the Chinese, the state media had begun a series of interviews with common citizens who had survived the war with the United States. The interviews were interspersed with old news footage from the war. Among the images that particularly bothered Perry were those showing American prisoners of war being marched through Hanoi and other Vietnamese cities.

History could easily repeat itself now in Beijing.

What would history say of his role? It wouldn’t know much about it, especially if the war escalated. Someone else would be in charge.

He had more pressing concerns.

“Sorry to keep you waiting, Harland,” said Melanie Behrens, appearing at the door. “I had to talk to our consul in Saigon. Are you ready to go?”

Perry nodded at the ambassador. She glanced across the thick-paneled room where he’d been sitting.

“You’re not watching that propaganda, are you?” she asked, nodding at the television.

“Thought it might raise my spirits,” he said sardonically, following her out.

22

Zeus slipped along in the water, half-swimming, half-walking, pulling the missile box along with him as he scuttled toward the bridge.

When he’d set out, he’d thought the north side would be the safest to use as an approach. But as he got closer to the bridge, he saw that the Chinese had troops on the south side patrolling near the bank. Thankfully the long shadows of the sun covered his side of the water. Still, he had to move carefully, half-holding his breath. He had no gun; it would have been ruined in the water.

Angkor and Chaū were upstream, watching. If he was caught, they were to fire the missile at the center support, hopefully hitting and exploding it.

That was a long shot, and not just because it would take a steady hand to keep the targeting beam on the support. There were several supports around the beam, and blowing that one strut up probably wouldn’t take the roadway down.

Zeus had come up with an alternate plan — he’d arrange the two remaining warheads like an IED on the top spar at the center. They’d strike them with the third missile.

That was a long shot as well. But he’d seen the Iraqis do that at least twice on one of his training tapes. So he knew it could be done.

The Chinese were moving their forces very slowly, mustering on both side of the water. It wasn’t clear why, whether it was just their normal caution, or if the road farther south was submerged. It might also be that the firefight had given them enough of a bloody nose that they were now going to be extra cautious.

An APC sat in the water about fifty yards from the bridge. It was a Type 77, similar to the ones they had battled before. It was supposed to be amphibious, but it had bogged down in the thick muck.

The vehicles he could see on the shore to his left were more modern — wheeled WZ 523s — M1984s as far as the U.S. Army was concerned. There were a lot of them on the northern side of the bridge, perhaps an entire regiment.

Zeus slipped around the abandoned APC. The side door was open. He was tempted to stick his head inside, look, and see if anyone had forgotten their weapon in the rush to get out. But that was unlikely, and there was no sense besides: he couldn’t carry a rifle easily without getting it wet.

Tugging the case behind him, Zeus stopped as he spotted a trio of soldiers standing beneath the northern side of the bridge. His throat tightened — it would be impossible to get to the bridge if they stayed there.

But they weren’t standing guard. They were relieving themselves in the water. One after the other they finished, zipping up and walking to the embankment. One stopped, scooped up a rock, and spun it back across the water. It hopped three times across the ten yards or so, then sank near the other side.

The others laughed.

Zeus took a deep breath. Stooping down so the water came to his neck, he began walking toward the middle of the stream, trying to drift gently and not splash. The water was not very deep even in the middle; if he’d stood it would barely come to his chest. He held the case under his arm, fighting against its buoyancy.

A truck started across the span. Zeus pushed faster, finally reaching the shadows next to the stanchion as the vehicle passed directly overhead.

Zeus pulled the missile box up and opened it. He dipped water inside and let it settle down, holding it against the current. Then he took the missiles out, one at a time, placing them on the cement pier the girder rose from. Climbing up onto the curved archway, Zeus examined the strutwork to find his target.

From the distance, the idea had been easy: he would tie the warheads against the steel X where the upright met the arch; the explosion would topple the bridge. But up close it didn’t look anywhere near as easy. The steel was thick, and while the shaped projectile would undoubtedly go through it, Zeus wasn’t sure that it could both penetrate the steel and explode the warheads at the same time.

He’d have to be a goddamn engineer to figure it out.

So why the hell had the Iraqis succeeded when he couldn’t?

Or rather, what exactly had they done?

A swell of despair clamped over him. Paralyzed, Zeus stared hopelessly at the struts, unable to move. Fatigue, hunger, and exhaustion were his real problems, but explaining his paralysis could not erase it, and understanding it was no help in dealing with it at all. Zeus hung under the bridge, his body vibrating with the rumble of one of the heavy APCs passing above. All his courage and strength were negated in that moment; he was a black hole, empty of everything, even fear, just a collection of frayed nerves and taut muscles clinging to the underside of a highway far from home.

Then, in the pit of his mind, a single thought rose up:

Anna.

It was not love that brought him back to himself. It wasn’t his concern for her, or even his need to save her. It wasn’t even his lust for the softness of her body against his.

Anger broke his paralysis. Rage at the injustice of her persecution.

It was a ferocious anger, a madness — truly an insanity, a righteous rising up against the cruel, cruel injustice of a world that would harm a woman who tried to save others. And while logic might have directed that anger more properly toward the Vietnamese, in Zeus the emotion focused on the Chinese, Evil’s agent in the war.

The rage that had driven Zeus at different points over the past several days, the blind craziness that even he mistook for courage, merged with the deepest parts of his soul. It became something he could control, something that would allow him to do what had to be done, to act with the logic and directness of a warrior.

Zeus pulled off his belt and slipped the missiles against the beam. He tied the belt as tightly as he could, then started to slip into the water. As he stepped down, a vehicle came onto the roadway and stopped almost directly above him. The bridge vibrated with its motor.

Zeus stopped, concerned that the warheads might slip from his knot. He glanced upward, trying to get a glimpse to make sure they weren’t coming loose.

A soldier began to shout. Zeus barely heard his yell over the engine, but the gunshot that followed was loud and clear.

23

The tall bastard with the pockmarked face pushed him down against the floor of the prison cell. Greene gasped for air — he couldn’t breathe. Hands grabbed him — dozens of hands, gripping tightly against his arms and legs and side. Someone hit his genitals and he felt a pain rise in the pit of his stomach. Tears were streaming from his eyes, and he was ashamed…

President Greene lurched upright in his bed. He knew was just a dream, but for a moment he was confused, lost. Was he home? Why was he alone?

He was in the White House. His wife was gone, visiting relatives.

He was in the White House. Home.

The dream was somewhat familiar, a not-quite accurate replay of some of his experiences as a guest of the North Vietnamese government. They had beaten the hell out of him, and the tall bastard was a real guard, and a genuine tormenter.

Not that the session had taken place the way he saw it in the dream. And many of the details were off. In the dream, for instance, the cell was spacious and well lit. It had been the opposite in real life.

Am I doing the right thing helping the bastards now?

Yes. Unfortunately. China had to be dealt with.

The bigger question was: What should he do next? The Russian weapons would help, but clearly they weren’t going to be enough. How far was he willing to go? Already some would say he was breaking the law, or at least its spirit.

Greene glanced over at the clock on his sideboard. It was a little past two.

Too early to get up, even for him.

He slipped back beneath the covers, thinking of how much he missed his wife.

24

Zeus turned toward the sound of the bullets. They were striking the water just to the side of the highway.

They couldn’t be firing at him. But what?

The vehicle above him started moving again. There were shouts, but the sound of the APC drowned them out. He considered dropping into the water and making a run for it, but decided it was wiser to climb up higher against the bridge and see what happened.

Worst case, Chaū would fire at the beam. He’d be dead either way.

There was more gunfire. The vehicle reached the south side of the roadway. There were shouts — three or four different voices. Zeus saw a pair of legs coming into the water on his left, then another.

The men shouted and pointed. Zeus leaned over, watching as they grabbed the missile case from the water.

The men shouted something in Chinese.

Zeus waited in the shadow of the bridge. He didn’t dare move, didn’t dare look.

If they come for me, Chaū will kill them all anyway.

An eternity and an instant passed. Finally, Zeus heard the sound of another vehicle starting across. The bridge began to vibrate heavily.

Slowly, he leaned out from behind his perch. The men had moved on.

Zeus ran the entire way back, hugging the shadows, trying not to slip or splash in the water as he pushed through the flooded brush. With every step, he thought to himself that now was the moment that Chaū and Angkor would fire.

With his first steps, he felt relief. But as he continued, disappointment crept in, and finally concern: Why hadn’t they fired?

Chaū stepped from the brush as Zeus approached.

“Major Murphy?”

“Sight on the middle post,” said Zeus, running to them. “The warheads are behind it. Fire! Fire!”

Zeus ran to them, dropping to his knee in a soggy slide. The Chinese were streaming across the bridge in a thick convoy, APCs lined up bumper to bumper.

Angkor moved back to let Zeus look through the eyepiece. He pushed his face against the rubber, saw that the aim was a little low.

“Chaū, explain where I put the warheads,” said Zeus. “He has to hit right there.”

Chaū said something to Angkor. The sergeant replied in Vietnamese, gesturing with his hands. Zeus immediately understood.

“He says that the missile rides slightly higher than the beam,” said Chaū.

“As long as he understands. Tell him to fire.” Zeus stepped back. “Tell him to fire. He’s got one shot. Get them now!”

Angkor knelt in front of the launcher. Zeus rose, not caring if the enemy saw him. There was a click and a swoosh, air rushing away; the missile faltered, nudging left, then corrected itself, pushing back at the beam.

It flashed through. Zeus saw a bolt of lightning — a white sheet rustled under the bridge. The roadway seemed to rise, as if lifting itself away from the missile. But the weight of the carriers pushed it back down into place.

A black and gray cloud of steam and smoke erupted from the water. The bridge caved into it, the APCs sliding downward like so many toy trucks kicked by a malevolent three-year-old. They rolled and twisted and fell on their tops as the entire bridge collapsed, and the sole road to the south held by the Chinese was destroyed, their path to conquest temporarily blocked.

25

Zeus and the others moved silently after the bridge collapsed, abandoning the launcher and trotting upstream. Their boots splashed in the muck. Zeus felt his side strain and his groin starting to pull but kept on. Every so often he felt the heavy, now sodden bandage at his neck. It surprised him — he’d almost forgotten he had been shot there.

Grazed. A talisman of luck rather than a wound.

Gradually, their pace slowed to a jog, then a walk. The Chinese began scrambling behind them, but the initial confusion as well as the thick foliage made pursuit difficult. With no roads to follow, the Chinese soldiers had to move through the jungle, and had to suspect an ambush at every moment. They fell farther and farther behind.

“It will be dark soon,” said Chaū, after they’d been walking for more than an hour. It was first time any of them spoke.

“Yes,” replied Zeus.

“We should find a place to cross the water.”

“We will.”

The stream had narrowed, but it had also deepened. They walked for another half hour, moving northward until they found a series of rocks that were easy to scramble across.

Zeus led the way.

“Maybe we should take a rest,” said Chaū on the other side.

“If we stop, we may not be able to get up,” said Zeus.

But the look on Major Chaū’s face showed they had to rest. They found a clearing a few yards away from the water — a small space between the trees, barely big enough for the three of them to sit.

“Here,” said Zeus, sliding down against one of the trees.

They looked at each other: Angkor, Chaū, Zeus.

“We did it,” Zeus told them.

Angkor said something. Chaū translated: Have we beaten them?

“For today,” answered Zeus. “Tomorrow we will do something else.”

Zeus gave them exactly fifteen minutes, then pulled himself to his feet. Every part of his body was stiff, tired, exhausted, but if he didn’t move now they would end up staying the night, and even if it didn’t seem as if the Chinese were following them, he couldn’t take that chance. The more ground they got between them and the force they had just thwarted, the better.

Blowing up the bridge would stymie the Chinese, stalling whatever they had planned. Eventually, though, they would figure out a way around it. Their APCs would be able to ford the marsh eventually, or they might even bring in bridging equipment. At best, the Vietnamese had gained two or three days, largely because the Chinese were extremely cautious. An American commander would surely have found a way to push the APCs and tanks through the mud, and even risked stringing his forces out, realizing the attacks Zeus had engineered were pebbles from a slingshot against a vast armada.

That was the way the Americans had dealt with the Iraqis in the Second Gulf War: as annoying as the antitank attacks were, ultimately they were no match for the juggernaut of the American forces surging toward Baghdad.

Would that be the Vietnamese fate as well?

Zeus wasn’t sure. But he had already decided on what their next move should be.

And what he, too, would do.

The sun had already set by the time they came across a winding dirt trail that cut southward. By now it was too dark to use the map for reference. Zeus guessed that the trail was too obscure for it to be marked in any event, but the direction was right. It seemed obvious that they should follow it.

The path intersected with a slightly larger trail, this one occasionally used by vehicles, if the muddy ruts were any indication. They walked along it, moving to the southwest and then west, climbing along a ridge that shadowed the larger mountains to the west. The trail ducked in and out of the jungle; for most stretches there was more than enough light to see by, although the shadows were so deep that Zeus had to feel the brush with his hands to guide them.

They walked for another hour and a half before coming to a Y. There they went to the right, treading past a confused intersection of ruts and trails. Finally, they found a road heading due south and took it.

A few minutes later, Chaū stopped and held up his hand.

A truck was coming.

“Send Sergeant Angkor down the road,” Zeus said. “We’ll hide on the side as it passes. If it’s Vietnamese, yell to him and he can jump out and stop it.”

Chaū explained. Angkor started to run.

There wasn’t enough time to get very far. Zeus and Chaū stepped off the road, waiting as the truck came up.

Zeus had no idea what he would do if it was a Chinese scout, looking for an alternative route south. Run into the jungle and hide? Fire at the truck, kill the driver, take it?

The latter, surely, though he felt too exhausted to even stand straight.

Fortunately, a decision wasn’t necessary. It was a Vietnamese patrol, crammed into a commandeered pickup, scouting the advance of General Tri’s armored brigade as it moved south.

Within a half hour of stopping the truck, Zeus and the others were en route to Hanoi.

26

As was his habit, Cho Lai missed the opening curtain at the Huguang Guild Hall in Beijing, settling into his seat a few minutes after the opera had begun. There was a rustling in the audience; the performer on stage turned to the premier’s box and bowed. Cho Lai rose, accepting the applause of the audience, then gestured for the show to continue.

The applause seemed genuine, at least. The people still appreciated his leadership.

He settled back to watch. The opera was a new interpretation of the Qing Ding Pearl, a classic that dated to the Song Dynasty. This was China at its best — the old traditions preserved, yet updated tastefully. It was proof, Cho Lai thought, that the country was moving forward beyond the chains of foreign interference and into the future.

The villains of the play were corrupt officials. As the reviews had noted, one could interpret them as the men Cho Lai had ousted to gain his position.

The premier was just starting to appreciate the lead actor’s strong voice when an aide tapped at his shoulder. Cho Lai sighed, then rose.

He was surprised to see Lo Gong himself in the small antechamber behind the seats.

“The offensive in the east has stalled,” said the defense minister. “Hai Phong cannot be reached.”

Cho Lai had known this would happen and had prepared himself. He closed his eyes and nodded.

“We are ready to resume the attack in the west,” said Lo Gong quickly. “Your nephew will be placed in charge, as you wish. He has been promoted.”

“General Sun will do a good job,” said Cho Lai calmly.

Lo Gong glanced at the door.

“What is it?” said Cho Lai.

“The intelligence services have been speaking with a source in North Korea,” said the defense minister. “We believe the Vietnamese have obtained a serious weapon. More dangerous than we believed.”

“How dangerous?” said the premier.

“It should not be discussed here,” said Lo Gong.

Cho Lai was about to order him to talk, but Lo Gong’s plaintive expression made it clear he shouldn’t.

“Meet me in the war room,” Cho Lai told him. “I will be there within the hour.”

27

“Five minutes,” Mara told Lucas. “That’s all I need.”

“Five minutes,” said Lucas. “And no haranguing me about getting back in the field. I’m busy as hell this morning.”

“Peter, this is important.”

“All right,” he said reluctantly. “But five minutes is all I got.”

Mara closed the door behind her.

“You have a map of Vietnam?”

“Not detailed.”

“Doesn’t have to be.”

Lucas dug through his papers. He had to be one of the most unorganized station chiefs — make that area chiefs — she knew. Without someone like Gina DiMarco — a cryptography clerk who doubled as his administrative assistant and general gal Friday — he was lost.

“Your BlackBerry,” she said, finding it under the pile. “Aren’t you supposed to leave that downstairs?”

“Mine’s cleared,” Lucas told her.

Damn! She’d forgotten to check her messages. Josh must have called by now.

Had he?

“Will this do?” Lucas asked, pulling out one of the military sit maps.

“As long as it has the Yen Tu Mountains,” said Mara.

“The no-fly zone? Is that what this is about?”

“Partly. You know what’s going on there?”

“The pagoda and the mines.”

“No.”

“No?”

Mara sat down. “North Korea,” she said.

“What North Korea?”

“Two years ago, the Vietnamese bought twenty old MiGs from North Korea.”

“And?”

“Why would the Vietnamese buy old MiGs?”

“Mara, I really only have a few minutes.”

“There’s a series of sat photos in my share queue,” she said. “Can you access them?”

Peter swung his chair around and faced his computer. It took him a while, but eventually he navigated to a secure folder set up so Mara could share items with selected people. She had already set it to allow Peter to open the photos.

“They’re working the mines,” he said.

“Go all the way through.”

Lucas went through the sequence slowly. They showed an old-fashioned mining area, one where miners took a small train down under the ground, being widened into a strip mine. Then the work stopped for two months. At the end of the sequence, the mine entrance had been closed.

“I’m missing this,” said Lucas.

“They closed the mine up at night,” said Mara. “In one night. I checked the sequences.”

“Help me out here.”

“They were working on it all along at night, after the satellite passed. They’re hiding something big there. I don’t think the Koreans sold them old MiGs. I think they sold them missiles.”

“Missiles?”

“And more. Nuclear waste from their reactors.”

“Well, we know that — ”

“Doc File 2,” said Mara impatiently. “Look at that. It’s a design for a sub-nuclear bomb. A kind of dirty neutron weapon. I think they have a bunch of them. And I think they’re getting ready to use them. Go back to that last image; the mine has been reopened.”

28

President Greene had just picked up the phone to call over to the kitchen for a morning snack when his chief of staff knocked on the door to the Oval Office.

“We need to talk to you,” said Dickson Theodore, poking his head in.

“Who we?” said Greene, trying to make a joke of it.

Theodore pushed in. Linda Holmes, his legislative coordinator, came in behind him. Both had serious expressions. Holmes, in fact, looked as if someone in her family had just died.

“We need to look at C-SPAN,” said Theodore, walking toward the TV.

“Here,” said Greene, picking up the remote control from the edge of his desk.

The television snapped on. C-SPAN was broadcasting from the House floor. Thurman Goodwell, a first-year congressman from New Jersey, was making a speech.

“And I tell you solemnly, and with the utmost sincerity, that I have absolute proof, absolute proof of what I am saying.” Goodwell was a short man — no more than five-four. He was young, too — no more than thirty. Greene thought he looked like a child dressed up as a congressman. “I have absolute proof that American troops are fighting and dying in Vietnam.”

“Shit,” muttered Theodore.

Holmes’s face was white.

“I am asking this house, this body, this duly elected body of representatives, to conduct a hearing, to start an immediate investigation into this and other illegalities,” continued Goodwell. “An investigation that will lead, inextricably, to the impeachment of President George Chester Greene.”

“Motherfucker,” said Theodore.

“You can say that again,” snapped Greene, flipping off the TV.

23

Zeus ran his hand over the stubble on his chin, tracing the boundary of the wound across his neck. The nurse who cleaned it was so appalled by the dirt and ooze that she had wanted to put him out, fearful of the pain. But Zeus thought an anesthetic would put him out for weeks, not hours, and that was simply too much time to lose.

The cloth and gauze she daubed so lightly against his skin felt like an ax at first. Now, though, it felt slightly warm and even pleasant, as if it were a hot rag a barber applied after a close, bracing shave.

“Major Murphy, I was looking for you.”

Zeus rose as Juliet Greig came into the room. She looked prettier than he remembered, but a little shorter, too. She walked over to the desk where Zeus was being treated.

“I’ve been looking into that matter you asked about,” Greig told him. Her voice had a distinctly businesslike tone — the sort of voice someone would use if they thought they were being monitored.

The nurse left. But Greig remained uncomfortable, stiffer than she had been the other day. Much more formal.

Was he being watched? Is that why they’d taken him to the office rather than some other room? Why hadn’t Perry come down to see him yet?

Their eyes met. Greig held his glance for a long moment before letting her gaze fall to the floor.

“We’re not in a position to do anything about your request,” said Greig.

“You know where she is?” Zeus asked.

Greig shook her head slightly.

“Is she in Hanoi?”

“It’s an internal matter.”

Greig raised her head. Zeus looked into her face, trying to understand what else it was that she was saying. Because she was saying something else.

“There’s nothing we can do?” Zeus asked.

“Nothing.”

As Greig turned, her hand brushed into the stack of white steno pads that had been stacked on the corner of the desk. Flustered, she bent and scooped them up, then walked briskly from the room.

Zeus watched her silently, perplexed by their exchange. He got up and began pacing, flexing his tired muscles.

She’d left a piece of paper between the steno books. It was barely visible, poking out from the edge.

Zeus paced some more. There must be a video camera that he wasn’t aware of.

So now his own people were spying on him. But maybe they always had.

He went behind the desk and sat down. As idly as he could, he pretended to play with the notebooks, then let them slip to the floor. When he scooped them up, he grabbed the paper as nonchalantly as he could, putting it into his pocket.

“Zeus.”

He looked up and saw General Perry, standing in the doorway.

“General.”

“Follow me, Major.”

Zeus trailed the general as he led him upstairs to the ambassador’s office. It was empty. Perry sat behind Behrens’s desk.

“I’ve arranged for your flight home,” said Perry. “Your mission here is complete.”

“Sir?”

“You’ve done more than enough,” said Perry.

“General — ”

Perry shook his head. “The Vietnamese are very appreciative. You’ve accomplished far more than anyone could have hoped, or even wished for. You were almost killed, or worse, captured. Several times. Your mission is complete.”

“General, I did nothing wrong.”

Perry stared at him. “Were you ordered to help the Vietnamese use the weapons?”

“I wasn’t ordered not to.”

Perry scowled, shaking his head ever so slightly before continuing.

“I’m sure it will all come out very agreeably for you, Major,” he said. “Now get yourself ready to go home. A car will take you back to your hotel. I’ll call you once I have the arrangements for your return.”

“I lost my sat phone, sir.”

“We’ll get a new one over to you.”

Zeus saw no point in arguing. He left the room and walked to the stairway, descending slowly.

In the car, he reached into his pocket and pulled out the crumpled note Greig had left.

Cao Dien Army prison

That was where Anna must be. Greig was telling him she couldn’t help. Maybe no one could.

No. One person could. And he owed Zeus.

He definitely owed him.

General Perry sat in the ambassador’s chair for several minutes after Zeus left. He’d been utterly unfair to the young man.

True, he was acting in not only the country’s best interests, but in Zeus’s as well. Yet that was hardly a consolation. There was something about being unfair that bothered Perry on a very basic level. It was a transgression that could not be entirely expunged by the fact that he was simply doing his duty.

And yet he was doing his duty. The U.S. absolutely must not get any more deeply involved in the war.

Greene’s policy was taking them there. Inevitably. Inextricably.

And Zeus was helping. It was a miracle he hadn’t been killed. Given enough time, he surely would be.

Harland Perry couldn’t be responsible for that. More important, he couldn’t be responsible for any more Americans getting killed here. What had happened to Christian was already bad enough.

It was wrong, and it was unjust. The country could not be allowed to drag itself piecemeal into this war. If they weren’t going to fight it right, there was no sense fighting at all. It was the wrong war at the wrong time in the wrong place.

There was only one honorable thing for Harland Perry to do.

The general picked up the phone.

“I need to talk to the White House,” he said. “To the President. It’s urgent, and it’s personal.”

When he reached the hotel, Zeus went up to his room. Unsure whether or not he was being followed — he guessed that Perry might have someone watching — he went and started a shower. Then he took out his shaving kit.

“No damn shaving cream,” he said aloud, just in case the room had been bugged.

He pulled a shirt and his boots back on. The clothes Chaū had gotten him when they got back — Vietnamese army pants and a civilian sweatshirt — were a little loose, but the shoes were nearly two sizes too small now that his feet had swollen up.

He stuffed his toes inside anyway.

Zeus took one of the towels with him, wrapped over his shoulder.

“I wonder if you have any shaving cream,” he asked the desk clerk downstairs.

The man ducked inside the office, and for a moment Zeus worried that he would need to use his backup plan. But the man quickly returned.

“No. Very sorry. No shave. Very, very sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Zeus told him. “I think I know where I can get some.” He took off his towel. “Can I just leave this here?”

Outside, Zeus walked to the street and turned the corner. He was going to go to the next hotel and take a cab there, but saw a vehicle approaching from the opposite direction and raised his hand. The driver immediately stopped.

“I need you to take me to a special place,” Zeus said after getting in. He dropped five American twenty-dollar bills on the front seat. “You won’t get in trouble. But you have to keep your mouth shut. You will tell no one.”

“Where?” said the man, reaching for the money.

The guards knew who Zeus was and what he had done, and that made it all considerably easier. Still, he expected it would be more difficult than it proved to get to see Trung. Instead of being questioned about what he wanted, or even made to wait, he was shown immediately to his office.

“It is an honor to congratulate you personally for your service,” said Trung, bowing his head as Zeus came into his small office. “The Vietnamese people are deeply grateful.”

“You’re welcome,” said Zeus.

“You have heard of our plans?” asked Trung.

“I have accepted your proposal for a counterstrike,” said Trung. “We are gathering our forces now.”

Caught off guard, Zeus could only nod.

“I have decided to lead the battle myself,” said Trung. “We lack only one thing: a tactician to assist in the strategy.”

“You want me to help,” said Zeus.

“It would be most agreeable.”

“I will. On one condition.”

Trung’s face remained emotionless.

“There is a woman, a doctor who treated me a few days ago, when I was brought back to Hanoi from behind the enemy lines. She’s been arrested on false charges of treason. You will release her, and then I will help you.”

Trung said nothing.

“Her name is Anna Anway,” said Zeus. “She’s in Cao Dien Army prison.”

General Trung remained silent, an unmoving stone.

“You’ll also probably have to convince my commander. General Perry has ordered me to return home.”

Zeus looked into Trung’s eyes. The two men locked stares.

“It will be done,” said Trung finally. “Major Chaū will see to your needs.”