Shadows of War

set to dial an emergency number, whether its account was open or not.

Yes! But what was it? 7-0-7? 1-1-2?

God, he couldn’t remember. He could picture the session in Tokyo where Dr. Renaldo’s assistant Tracey told them how to use the phones, but he couldn’t remember the number.

God, she was beautiful.

She’d gone only as far as Tokyo. He remembered wishing she was coming; now he was glad she hadn’t.

Josh tried the first combination that came into his head.

CONNECTED.

Connected!

He stared at the phone, not quite believing it. By the time he got it to his ear, the operator was asking what the nature of his call was.

The man had a British-Malaysian accent.

“My name is Josh MacArthur. Dr. Joshua MacArthur,” he said, using the honorific though he had not been given the degree yet, hoping it would make him sound more important. “I am working for the UN. I’m in Vietnam. The Chinese have just invaded across the border. They attacked us. They killed everyone in the expedition. I’m a few kilometers, no more than ten, from the base camp. Maybe less than ten. I don’t know. There was a village nearby. They attacked it. Murdered civilians. I have video. It’s — it’s pretty disgusting.”

Josh stopped speaking. The operator hadn’t said anything, not even “Go on” or “Yes” or “You’re out of your mind.” He listened for a moment, trying to hear breathing on the other side.

“Are you there?” asked Josh.

There was no answer.

“Are you there? I’m with the UN. We need help.”

Josh fought to keep the desperation from his voice, but it was impossible.

“Are you there? Operator? This is an emergency. Operator?”

The phone claimed it was connected, but Josh couldn’t hear anything. It was as if the line had been cut.

Had there really been an operator? Or had he imagined it?

“Hello? Hello?” he repeated. “I’ll hang up and dial again.”

He hesitated, then pressed the red button.

Don’t panic, he told himself. But his fingers trembled as he redialed.

The word connected came on the screen again. But this time, there was no answer from the operator, just more quiet.

“This is Josh MacArthur. I’m with the UN. We’ve been attacked in northwestern Vietnam. We need help. Can you hear me? Hello? Hello?…”

There was nothing in response, not even a signal telling him he had misdialed. The line didn’t even seem dead. It was more like a vacuum, sucking sound away: a static-free limbo.

Josh hit the End Call button.

Whom else could he call?

His uncle in Iowa.

He punched in the numbers and hit Send. But this time the phone didn’t connect at all — it was still in emergency mode.

Whatever was going on must be affecting the phones. Dejected, Josh stuck the phone in his pocket and gazed back at the trail, struggling to separate the shadows into those that were real, and those his mind invented.

9

Northern Vietnam

The settlement where Mara and the wounded Vietnamese pilot Kieu had been taken was so small that there were no televisions; the nearest was in the marginally larger Nam Det, about two kilometers up the road. With Kieu resting and seemingly in good care, Mara decided to go there and see if she could get news from the wider world. One of the young men who had carried the stretcher was appointed to be her guide, and they set out just as it was turning dark.

The Vietnamese knew that something serious was happening. They’d seen the MiG overhead and heard the gunfire that had led to the crash and explosion. But they didn’t seem overly curious about the situation. They made no attempt to ask Mara what was going on. She supposed curiosity was not a good characteristic in a dictatorship. Still, she knew no good ever came from closing one’s eyes to trouble, and found herself asking her escort what he thought was going on as they walked to Nam Det.

He didn’t answer. Mara wasn’t sure whether he didn’t understand what she was saying — she was still struggling with the language’s tones and accent — or whether he had been instructed not to say anything. She tried again, a little louder, pretending there was a possibility that he hadn’t heard.

Again he said nothing.

“Am I saying the words wrong?” she said.

“Your pronunciation need work,” said the young man in English.

“You speak English,” replied Mara, also in English.

“We learn in school.”

“So what do you think?”

“Think?”

“About the Chinese attack. Aren’t you curious? Do you think it’s true?”

“If you say those were Chinese planes, why wouldn’t I believe you?” He seemed genuinely surprised that she would think he didn’t.

“Are you going to defend your country?”

“I am not in the army.”

“Are you going to join?”

“If the government tells me to join, then I will be in the army.”

“I would think — I know if America was attacked, I would want to join the army.”

“You are not in the army?”

“I’m a journalist,” said Mara, reverting to her cover story.

The young man nodded, but he didn’t seem convinced. Probably like Kieu, he assumed she worked for the CIA.

“What do you do now?” Mara asked. “What work?”

“We farm.”

“You?”

“Me, yes.”

“And you still go to school? You studied English — are you going to move to Hanoi or Saigon when you graduate?”

The young man explained that the school was more like an American grammar school, and that students there learned French and English by the time they were twelve. At that time, they also generally went to work in their village, which was what he had done. He had not been in a schoolroom for several years.

“It is not like in the south,” said the young man, who still hadn’t volunteered his name. “Some of the older people — many of the older people — don’t think we should learn English. But it is a necessary language.”

“What about Chinese?”

The young man smiled, reeling off a few Chinese phrases so quickly Mara couldn’t decipher them all, though her Chinese was somewhat better than her Vietnamese. It seemed amazing that someone with what amounted to a middle-school education could speak four different languages, but the young man assured her it was not unusual. The Vietnamese people were willing to work hard, he said, to “advance in knowledge.”