Shadows of War

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

* * *

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

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

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

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

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

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

The driver didn’t answer.

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Yes, Lieutenant. Thank you.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The private grinned. “Nothing, Lieutenant.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The driver was in shock and didn’t react

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

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

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

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

“He is an ass.”

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

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

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

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

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