“Mara?” said DeBiase.
“There are four Vietnamese farmers, I guess, standing here looking at me.”
“You used the word for fire brigade,” said DeBiase. “Tell them you need an ambulance.
“You really think they have ambulances out here?” she told him. But she repeated the words.
“Put me on with them,” he said. “My Vietnamese is better than yours.”
Mara held up the phone and gestured for them to take it. Instead, the men began talking to themselves. Then the youngest turned and began trotting away.
“Mara, what’s going on?” asked DeBiase.
“I’m not sure. Stay on the line.”
The three men continued to stare at her, their slack-jawed expressions similar to those Mara remembered from a photograph of people watching the collapse of the World Trade Center towers on store televisions. Behind them, Kieu’s aircraft had stopped burning; the black smoke that had followed the fire had dissipated. But the burnt smell still hung so thick in the air that Mara could taste it in her mouth.
“The Chinese shot down our plane,” Mara told the men. “They’re invading your country.”
One of the men turned to look behind him. Mara thought he had understood what she’d said, until he pointed and took a few steps away. The man who’d left a few moments ago was returning, with two teenage boys and a stretcher.
“We have to be careful,” she said in Vietnamese as they ran down the slope. “Careful.”
She put the phone back to her ear. “How do I say he may have a neck injury?” she asked DeBiase.
He gave her the words, then stayed on the line a few minutes more, until they had Kieu up the embankment. Worried that her battery would start to run down — the charger had been in her bag, left in the plane and presumably destroyed — Mara told DeBiase that she would check back with him in a half hour.
Hand pressed against Kieu’s neck, she walked next to the stretcher as they climbed up the slope and walked south to a barely discernible path at the edge of the field. The path twisted around thick clumps of trees, the jungle growing darker and darker until it seemed as if the sun had fallen. Finally, a pair of twists brought them to a clearing; a small village was visible at the far end.
The hamlet consisted of a dozen small huts and two farm buildings. All but one of the huts were made of bamboo topped by a thatched roof. The exception was made of scrap metal and wood; some of the slats at the front had originally come from vegetable boxes and still had markings on them. The farm buildings were made of corrugated steel. Yellowish red rust extended in small daggers from most of the screws and bolts holding them together; the roofs’ white coating was peeling, and large flakes fluttered in the soft breeze.
They took Kieu to a thatched hut at the very entrance to the settlement. The interior was larger than Mara had expected, and divided into several rooms. The front room functioned as a sitting room, with cushions scattered on the straw floor, and a brand-new Sony portable radio on a small table at the side. As Kieu and his stretcher were lowered, Mara knelt next to him, her hand still pressed against his wound.
An old man came in from one of the back rooms. Gaunt and tall, he had a sparse goatee and a wreath of very fine white hair starting at the temples. He bent over the stretcher, stared for a moment, then retreated without saying a word.
“Is he a doctor?” Mara asked the others, but they continued staring at her as if not yet sure she really existed.
The old man returned with a purple cloth bag. He set it down opposite Mara, then slowly lowered himself next to the stretcher. He took a blue bottle from the bag and opened it; a bitter smell immediately wafted through the room. The next thing he removed from the bag was a gauze pad wrapped in sterile paper; he pulled it open, daubed it with the clear liquid from the bottle, then reached with one hand to Mara’s and gently-pushed her fingers away from the shirt she’d used as a bandage. He pulled up the shirt, then began to clean the wound, very lightly at first, his strokes gradually growing longer and more forceful.
The wound was nearly two inches long, but very shallow. A black L sat at its center. At first Mara thought it was a bone, but as she looked she realized it must be the piece of shrapnel that had caused all the damage. The old man studied it, both with his eyes and the tips of his fingers, probing ever so gently. Then he took the bottle and tipped a bit of liquid into the wound.
Kieu jerked his body violently. The old man stopped pouring, waiting for him to settle. Then he poured again. Kieu jumped once more.
“You’re hurting him,” Mara said in Vietnamese.
There was no sign that the old man understood or even heard what she said. He capped the bottle, then opened his bag once more. He took out a small set of forceps.
“You’re not going to sterilize it?” asked Mara.
He ignored her. Bending over the wound, he lowered the tips of the forceps, maneuvering the instrument as he sized up how he would remove the metal. Then he sat back, and once more reached into the bag on his lap. This time he removed a Bic lighter and used it to heat the very end of the forceps.
When the metal glowed red, the old man took a very long breath, the sort one uses when meditating. Then he pointed at Kieu, motioning with his hands.
“You want me to hold him,” said Mara, using Vietnamese but miming to make sure she was understood.
The old man nodded. As soon as Mara’s hands were on Kieu’s shoulders, he scooped the forceps down, retrieving the shrapnel. Kieu screamed and bucked. Mara pushed her weight against his, easily holding him down, though there was no way to stop the awful sound coming from his mouth.
The old man cleaned and inspected the wound, which was bleeding again. He took new gauze, daubed it in his solution, and began soaking up the blood. As he did this with one hand, he reached with the other into his bag and removed a jar and a steel rod not unlike a knitting needle. Once again using his Bic lighter, he fired the edge of the rod and cauterized the wound, Kieu screaming the entire time. After dressing the wound with a large piece of gauze and tape, he moved on to the smaller one at Kieu’s back, just cleaning and bandaging this one.
Gesturing with his hand, the old man told Mara to roll Kieu over. The poor pilot screamed even louder, his feet jerking violently.
“Ssssh,” said the old man kindly, putting his hand under Kieu’s head. “Sssh.”
He took another bottle from his bag. He told Kieu something in Vietnamese that she couldn’t understand, then held the bottle to the wounded man’s lips. Kieu made a face and backed away. The old man held still for a moment, then pressed the bottle against his lips again. Kieu resisted; the old man tilted the bottle up and forced some of the liquid into his mouth. Then he clamped Kieu’s mouth closed, making him swallow.
Mara looked up. The men who had come here with her were gone; the room was empty except for her and the old man.
The old man lowered Kieu’s head back to the stretcher, then looked up at Mara. He pointed to her chest.
“What?” she said. Glancing down, she realized her shirt was soaked with blood. “It’s all from him. I’m fine.”
The old man stared at her, as if he didn’t believe what she was saying.
“It is. Look,” she said, unbuttoning the top button and pulling her shirt to the side. She didn’t feel like giving the old man a peep show, and stopped at her bra strap.
Her satellite phone rang in her pocket; she’d forgotten to call DeBiase back.
“Excuse me,” she told the old man, rising.
She was surprised to find a tight circle of children and older women gathered just outside the front door. She slipped through them, then walked the few yards toward the clearing before answering the phone.
“Are you all right?” DeBiase asked.
“I’m hanging in there. There’s some sort of local medicine man or doctor, I don’t know. He helped Kieu.”
The sound of jets streaking nearby split the air. Mara looked upward but couldn’t see them.
“What’s going on?” asked DeBiase.
“Jets going somewhere. Fighters.”
“Chinese?”
