rear with his men as a halfhearted gesture of camaraderie. While at first cowed by the commando uniforms, now he began pounding on the bulkhead between the driver’s and passengers’ compartments, demanding to know what was going on.
Jing Yo turned to the driver and smiled. The man, a conscript who looked all of sixteen, didn’t smile back.
Three kilometers from where he’d turned around, Jing Yo found a dried streambed that led to the east. He put the Shaanqi into low gear and turned off the highway, descending a shallow drop to the bed.
Sand and very small pebbles marked the first half kilometer or so; Jing Yo found the going easy. But gradually the pebbles gave way to rocks and the potholes in the path became larger. There was no escaping up the banks, either — trees grew on each side, and where there were no trees the boulders and exposed rock made it impossible to pass. Jing Yo steered left and right, wrangling a way through the increasingly treacherous terrain until finally, a kilometer and a half from the highway, he could go no farther.
“Everyone out, let’s go,” said Sergeant Wu, leaping out as his truck stopped.
By now, Captain Wi Lai was too angry for words. His round pumpkin of a face was red, and as he came out to confront Jing Yo his arms pumped up and down like pistons in a diesel engine at red line.
Jing Yo ignored him, telling Sergeant Wu to divide up the men and fan out in a search pattern.
“Who the hell are you?” sputtered the captain. “Why are you ordering my men? Where are we?”
Jing Yo stared at him for a moment before speaking. The captain was well fed, his belly hanging over his belt.
“I am Lieutenant Jing Yo with the Special Squad. We are looking for an enemy aircraft that has been shot down. It is a crucial mission. You will help us.”
“You are a
“I’m with the Special Squad,” repeated Jing Yo. “The commandos.” He took out his satellite phone, in effect dismissing the captain.
“I don’t care if you are with the premier’s bodyguard,” shouted Captain Wi Lai. “You are a
“If you care to take it up with my superior, I will let you talk to him when we are done,” said Jing Yo.
Sun’s communications aide answered the call. There had been no new information on the aircraft; two gunners swore they had seen it crash exactly one kilometer from where Jing Yo was calling from.
A jet boomed in the distance. The air force was closing in. Sun would not be happy if they got there soon enough to somehow take credit for shooting down the plane.
He glanced up and saw the regular army captain glaring at him.
“I have a captain who wishes to talk to Colonel Sun,” Jing Yo told the aide. “I borrowed one of his platoons and two vehicles. They will be useful in the search.”
Captain Wi Lai grabbed the phone and began angrily demanding to speak to the colonel, complaining that he needed to keep his company intact. He was cut off in midsentence. Jing Yo heard the aide tell him that for the duration of the operation, Lieutenant Jing Yo was in charge and authorized to use his squad as he saw fit.
Still not satisfied — and apparently not smart enough to keep his mouth shut — the captain began to bluster again, demanding to know whom he was speaking to.
“Sergeant Lanna,” came the reply. And then Lanna hung up. “Lieutenants giving captains orders? Sergeants approving it? The army has gone crazy.”
Jing Yo took the phone from the captain.
“It will not be painful for you, Captain. If your squad does good work, you will certainly be rewarded. Best to accept reality.”
Jing Yo began walking up the streambed. It was not the first time he had seen a regular army officer confront the realities of army politics and the commandos’ place in the unwritten order of battle, but usually such confrontations were not as satisfying as this one.
He stopped counting when he reached thirty. The tanks gave way to troop and supply trucks, then were replaced by more tanks. He estimated that at least 150 vehicles had gone down the highway in the past half hour, and the procession didn’t seem likely to end anytime soon.
The vehicles had characters and small red stars on their sides; some had Chinese flags. The Chinese were invading Vietnam.
This is what a war looks like, Josh told himself. No big set-piece battles, no arrows on a map, no roving video cameras and super-serious television announcers — just vehicles rushing by, machine guns in the distance, soldiers chasing you through the woods.
The Chinese were invading Vietnam. It was the start of World War III. And he had a ringside seat.
4
Except that’s not what he wanted to do.
“No, we’re diving. Push,” Kieu told her. “We get low. His radar will not be able to see us. Low.”
Mara leaned forward, going with him. The airplane zipped downward, a direction it seemed enthusiastic about trying.
“Look for the airstrip,” Kieu said. “It should be close. Or another place to land.”
As Mara raised her head, a swarm of bees flew in front of the windscreen, moving so close together that they looked like inky water coming from a hose. They flashed red as they passed; only then did she realized she was looking at cannon fire.
Her head began to float as Kieu dipped the plane hard onto its right wing.
“Hold on, hold on!” yelled the pilot.
The aircraft began to buck. Mara thought they’d been hit. She started trying to think of the best way to hold her body when they crashed.
“Where’s that field?” Kieu yelled. “I can’t see it!”
Mara pushed up in her seat. The ground was a blur filling the right side of her window. The left side of the window was blue.
“Steer the plane!” she said.
“I have the plane. I need a place to land.”
There was a hole in the trees in the right corner of the window.
“There — try there,” yelled Mara, pointing to it.
The plane dropped nearly straight down for a few seconds, then leveled off. She struggled to relocate it, finally spotting it much farther to the left.
The hole was black — a pond, not a field.
“It’s water,” she told him.
“It’ll have to do,” said Kieu.
He let the nose slip down again, then pulled up so abruptly that the plane seemed to stutter in the air. Mara took the hand grip with both hands, straining once more to see the terrain. A shadow passed across the trees on the left, cast by the MiG that was pursuing them.
“I think there’s a village — wait — can you turn right? Turn right!”
Once more, the plane pitched on its wing. This time, Kieu misjudged either the maneuver or his ability to hold it; the wing spun around and the plane went into an invert, twirling upside down. It began in slow motion, then
