Shadows of War

“Room, yes,” he said, leading her back inside.

Shown to her room, Mara went straight to the bathroom, not even bothering to check for bugs — without her electronic detector, she could never be sure a room like this was clean.

Her face was filthy and scratched, though not as badly as she had feared. The blood was clotted on one side of her nose. Her hair, though short, was a tangled, frizzled mess: a werewolf would have been proud.

She washed up as best she could, then went to find a place to call Bangkok from.

3

Washington, D.C.

Zeus Murphy’s head felt as if it were going to spin itself right off his shoulders. So much had happened — was happening — in the past few hours that his brain couldn’t process anything anymore.

But here he was, standing in the national security adviser’s smaller-than-he’d-expected office in the White House West Wing, telling him and the president’s chief of staff, Dickson Theodore, how and why China was tearing through western Vietnam.

“If I were running the operation” — it was important to keep adding a disclaimer to make it clear that he wasn’t clairvoyant — ”I’d sweep in under Hanoi, cut the north off, then go for the south. Once I’m into the middle of the country, I have highways, I have infrastructure — I’ll have an easy time of it. It won’t really matter how I got there. I don’t want to bother with Hanoi if I don’t have to. That’s where their defenses are. If I had come down the east coast, where everyone expected — say Route 1 — I’d have much better roads, but I’d also have to deal with half the Vietnamese army. Out here, my main problem is traffic control.”

“I wouldn’t make light of that,” said the national security adviser, Walter Jackson. “Logistics are the key to any battle.”

Murphy fought to keep a smile from forming on his lips. It was always amusing when civilians tried to talk about military theory with a few chestnuts they’d picked up from PowerPoint lectures. The problem was they couldn’t quite get those chestnuts into the proper context.

“If the Chinese were battling us, or even the Russians,” he told Jackson, “then they’d have to be worried — very worried. But they’re not fighting us. They’re fighting Vietnam. It has a small and largely unprepared army. There’s a lot of margin for error.”

“Whose error? The Chinese? Or ours?” came a voice behind him.

Murphy turned, then immediately jumped to his feet.

“Mr. President.”

“At ease, Major.” Greene looked at Jackson and Theodore. “I wanted to hear this for myself. Where’s Ms. Mai?”

“She’s down the hall on the phone with the Pentagon,” said Jackson. “She heard all this already. That’s why she brought him back with her.”

The president leaned back against the wall and folded his arms in front of his chest. He looked like a college professor quizzing a young freshman.

And Murphy felt like that freshman, and not a particularly cocky one, as he continued explaining what he thought the Chinese had in mind — a lightning strike to sweep around the Vietnamese capital, then a second phase to the attack to take the rest of the country.

“I could see them going through Laos. Or landing somewhere in the south. Maybe both.”

He pointed to the map on Jackson’s desk, jabbing his finger at the yellow amoeba in the center that represented Hanoi.

“In three or four days, maybe even less, they can be down in Quang Tri Province. From there, the country is effectively cut in half. Then they can take their time. My guess is that they save Hanoi for last. All of the Vietnamese troops are concentrated up here, on their border at the northeast. The Vietnamese might be able to pull them down to Hanoi, but never to Saigon. Excuse me, Ho Chi Minh City.”

“Saigon is fine,” said Greene. “Even the Vietnamese call it that among themselves.”

“The south is what they really want,” said Zeus. “Because of the agriculture and the oil off the coast. But they have to take Hanoi eventually. They could even offer a deal. Your lives for tribute. Something like that.”

“How do you stop them?” asked the president.

“I’m not sure you can,” admitted Zeus. “I haven’t seen the intelligence, Mr. President.”

Zeus did have a few ideas, starting with immediately destroying the road network in and around Quang Tri Province — including Highway 28 in Laos. Shifting forces south immediately by aircraft and ship, rather than waiting for an attack that would never come, might also help.

The president nodded as he spoke.

“All of this might only slow them down,” said Zeus. “But, uh, from our point of view, that’s probably the best we could hope for. You know, kind of a diplomatic opening?”

“Slow them down.” Greene pushed himself off the wall and bent over the map. “How long can they hold out without help?”

“I wouldn’t want to guess.”

“How long did they hold out in the simulation you ran?” asked Jackson.

“Well, we, uh, we won that. So I guess you’d say they held out forever.”

The others exchanged glances. President Greene looked as if he was trying to suppress a smile.

He looked shorter in person than he did on TV and thinner, but only a little less intense.

“Usually, any side opposing China loses,” added Zeus. “It’s, uh, I guess the odds are pretty much against you.”

“Major, how did you happen to pick Vietnam to war-game for?” asked Greene.

“It’s kind of a long story, sir, but basically I was told that was the force I was to play for. So I followed orders.”

“You think you could win if you were the Chinese?”

“Oh, that’s not a problem, sir. I can always figure something out.”

“Good.” Greene turned to his chief of staff. “Get him on the task force, get him out there. It’s all right — I’ll call the chief of staff myself. I’m sure she’ll see it my way.”

Zeus knew his future had just been decided for him — dramatically decided. He started to stammer a thank-you.

“It wasn’t my idea,” the president told him. “I agree with it, but the head of the task force asked for you personally.”

“Uh, who — ”

“Harland Perry,” said Greene. “I believe you already know the general. He’s an old friend of mine. I think you’ll get along with him pretty well.”

4

Beijing

For all his education, the French ambassador had never taken the time to learn Chinese. They had to conduct the interview in French. Cho Lai, rising from the red couch where he had received him, looked at him now in contempt.

“What you say is certainly important,” said the Chinese premier. “But Vietnam has been the aggressor, and we must defend our territory. It would be the same if a part of France were attacked. You would not react lightly — or you would find yourself in the situation you were in when the German tanks came in 1940.”

“This is not 1940,” said the ambassador quietly.

“Very true. And we will not allow it to become a replay of that time. We are not enemies,” added Cho Lai,