Shock of War (47 page)

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

Quàng Ninh Province

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 Cha
Å«
, 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 Cha
Å«
on the other side.

“If we stop, we may not be able to get up,” said Zeus.

But the look on Major Cha
Å«
'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, Cha
Å«
, Zeus.

“We did it,” Zeus told them.

Angkor said something. Cha
Å«
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, Cha
Å«
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.”

Cha
Å«
explained. Angkor started to run.

There wasn't enough time to get very far. Zeus and Cha
Å«
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

Beijing

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

CIA headquarters, Virginia

“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

The White House

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.

29

American embassy, Hanoi

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.