Shadows of War

“Age isn’t important.”

“Do you even have radar?”

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

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

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

“It’s fine.”

“It’s running rough.”

“It always does in the morning.”

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

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

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

“Do you think I’d go if it didn’t? We don’t have parachutes. If you die, I die.”

The engine settled down with the full tank of fuel. It roared as Kieu brought it up to takeoff power, pushing from the patchwork concrete at the edge of the ramp to the main runway as soon as he got clearance. It rose immediately, the doubled wings eager to get into the air.

Sapa was a little less than three hundred kilometers away; the Colt cruised around 185 kilometers an hour, or roughly a hundred knots — the speed some planes landed at.

It looked like a handful to fly. The plane was unpressurized, but they stayed relatively low, skimming over the city, rice paddies, and eventually the jungle at a few hundred feet.

“When we get closer, you’ll need to wear the mask,” the pilot told her after they’d been in the air for a while. Kieu hadn’t given her a headset. He had to shout to make himself heard over the engine. “In the mountains. I’ll tell you when.”

“Is it safe?”

“Plenty safe. Just high. Even in the valleys.”

“All right.”

“So, why is the CIA interested in scientists?”

She’d let the first reference go as if she hadn’t heard it, but now felt compelled to reply.

“I’m not a spy. I’m a journalist. I’m doing a story on the expedition.”

Kieu laughed. “You expect me to believe that?”

“I don’t care what you believe,” said Mara.

“All Americans in Vietnam are spies,” said Kieu.

“You don’t honestly believe that.”

“The government does. And maybe I am a spy myself.”

“Maybe you are.”

People were always accusing Americans in Asia of being spies. Mara knew from experience that if she offered a reasonable alternative, most people would accept it at face value, repeating it to the authorities if asked. What they truly believed was another story, of course. For some, thinking that they were working with a spy was attractive — they liked the idea of danger, even if it was far removed from reality.

“What are these scientists doing? Looking for more oil?” asked Kieu.

“They’re studying climate change.”

“Ha! They should cool the sun if they want to be useful.”

“I’m sure they would if they could.”

“It’s always been hot in Vietnam. My grandfather sweated the minute he got off the plane, and he landed in December.”

“You’re in touch with your grandfather?”

“We’ve met. It’s always hot in Vietnam,” he repeated, changing the subject. “Today is very much like last year, and the year before.”

“The average daily temperature in Hanoi was three degrees hotter last year than it was five years ago,” she said. Though no expert on climate change, Mara had heard the statistics so many times she knew them by heart.

“Three degrees. Nothing.”

“That’s for the entire year. A change like that is huge. The changes in the extremes have been even more dramatic. And Vietnam is one of the lucky ones. The changes here haven’t been catastrophic. They’ve helped your country, on the whole.”

Kieu waved his hand. “The heat means nothing. Weather, that’s all.”

“You don’t think the climate has changed?”

“Nah. Superstition. Like the old people’s warts, and burning incense to pray for rain. It doesn’t pay to worry about things we can’t control,” he added. “Time to put the oxygen on.”

There were two large canisters, each with its own separate hose and mask. The flow tickled her nose and upper lip. Kieu showed her how to adjust it, easing the gas until it was almost natural.

Mara had marked out the camp’s location on a printed map, having transposed it from the satellite data Lucas had given her before she left. Kieu took the map from his clipboard, examining it closely.

“Very close to the border,” he said.

“You told me that before.”

“Still, very close to the border.”

“Problem?”

“Not today.”

A few minutes after they began using the oxygen, Kieu banked the aircraft over a road that cut along the bottom of a valley, paralleling what looked like a narrow stream. Ten minutes later, he turned sharply west, climbing up the side of the hill. The aircraft hugged the treetops; from Mara’s vantage it looked as if they were barely clearing the upper branches.

They flew slower and slower as they climbed, until finally it seemed as if they were standing still. Finally, Kieu pitched the nose down and they picked up so much speed so quickly that Mara’s stomach seemed to shoot into her mouth. Kieu stared intently out the front of the plane, holding the yoke tightly as they pitched down into another valley. He consulted the map again, frowned, then turned northward.

“Almost there,” he grunted.

Mara looked at the road below. From the air, it seemed to twist violently; she wondered if what he’d promised about being able to land was true.

“We’re within four or five klicks,” said Kieu. He pointed ahead. “The border is there somewhere, eight, ten kilometers from us. The camp should be on the right side, about midway down the wing as we come over.”

Mara reached below the seat for Kieu’s binoculars. They flew northward very slowly, following the road. As they approached the border — the fence itself was hard to see because of the jungle — the glare of a reflection hit her eyes.

She pulled the glasses up to get a look at the car or truck the light had reflected off. But instead of seeing one vehicle, she saw an entire line of them — troop transports, old ZiLs, the Vietnamese equivalent of American two-and-a-half-ton trucks. There were a dozen lined up on the road within spitting distance of the border checkpoint.

“What’s going on down there?”

“I don’t know. That’s weird.”

The terrain was rising to meet them, taking them gradually toward the vehicles. The pilot angled the plane to the right, flying toward the camp.