ahead and shoulder their rifles, she downshifted and stopped.
“I have medicine for the orphanage at Nam Det,” she told the captain when he strode over. She used English, deciding that what she needed to say was too complicated for her Vietnamese. “I am with the Sisters of Charity. We have to get the children out safely.”
The captain either didn’t understand her English or didn’t care to soil his tongue with it.
“Why are you driving an army truck?” he asked in Vietnamese.
“General Tho gave it to us,” Mara said, switching to Vietnamese as well. “The soldiers who were supposed to guard me would go only as far as Vinh Yen. They left me on my own. They had to join the fighting. Maybe you could have some of your men assist me. There are many people who need help with the evacuation there. The little children — ”
When Mara hesitated, the captain took out his pistol and pointed it at her. His two soldiers did the same with their rifles.
“I can get out,” said Mara, raising her hands and reaching for the door handle.
The captain pulled the door open.
“I’m a nun,” she said, holding up the cross.
The captain yanked her from the truck, throwing her on the ground.
If it had been just he and she, even with the gun, even with her cover story of being a nun, she would have jumped from the ground and thrown herself into his chest. He was a little rooster of a man, probably fifty pounds lighter than she was, and no match for her, especially if caught off guard.
He had a rooster face as well as body, a sharp nose that jutted prominently from his face — a target just waiting to be kicked in.
But he had the two soldiers nearby, and there were many others close by. Even if she escaped at first, she’d stand out in the city, and beyond.
What would a real nun do?
Pray to God to strike the bastard down.
And maybe cry, depending on the nun.
Mara had never been the weepy sort, but she forced herself to simper now, protesting about “God’s little children” who needed to be saved. The captain ignored her, ordering his men to search the truck.
Pushed aside, Mara tried calculating an escape route. There were too many soldiers around to give her good odds, though.
She could grab Rooster Face’s pistol and use him as a hostage.
Satisfying, but ultimately counterproductive. Best to keep with the cover story, play it through. Worst case they were going to send her south with the refugees. She might miss tonight’s drop, but that could be rescheduled.
No, worst case she could be arrested. That was a possibility, but probably a complication Rooster Face wouldn’t want to deal with.
Worst case was even worse than that. But she kept such possibilities locked off in a different part of her brain. No need to examine them now.
“Where are your orders?” the captain demanded as his men finished searching the cab, signaling with their hands that they had not found anything.
“Orders?”
“The general who gave you permission. Where are his orders?”
Mara had some trouble with the words and his accent. She thought at first that he simply meant her papers; she gave him her “safe” EU passport, which identified her as an Irish citizen. Mara had already rehearsed an excuse about why the passport didn’t call her “sister” — she was a prenovice, a special category of nuns in training who had not yet joined the novitiate.
“My passport,” she said, pushing it into the captain’s hands.
“Where are your
“The general did not give me orders. He gave me guards,” said Mara. “Soldiers.”
“And where are they?”
“They left me. I didn’t think it was my place to question them. I am a nun, not a soldier.”
“You are a foreign bloodsucker.”
Among the many sisters Mara had known growing up, one in particular had been stubborn and strong. A strict disciplinarian, Sister Jean Marie had been the scourge of the parochial school Mara attended until sixth grade. Mara imagined she was her now — a massive, if necessary, leap of imagination, but one that gave her a map to follow.
“I suck no blood,” she said, raising her head as she stiffened her spine, both literally and figuratively. “I am doing God’s work for the least fortunate.”
“God is a fairy tale,” answered the captain, adding several words that would probably have made Sister Jean Marie blush.
“The orphans are not fairy tales, and they do not care who feeds them. God or fairy tale,” said Mara. The Vietnamese words sprang into her head as she played the role, her confidence gaining. “These are poor children who must be saved from the Chinese devils.”
While the captain was not impressed by Mara’s religious claims, much less her pose as a nun, his two soldiers were clearly uncomfortable, shifting back and forth behind him. One of them looked particularly embarrassed, frowning and looking down at the ground whenever she glanced in his direction.
“We will repel the Chinese scum,” said the captain.
“I pray that you will.” Mara made a point of looking at his soldiers. “I thank God that you have such fine men in your command.”
This only made the captain more angry. He spun back to his men. “Have you searched the back of the truck? Get your lazy asses in there. Find out what this she-bitch has. Probably poison for the children.”
The soldiers rushed to comply. They opened the tailgate, then hauled the motorbike down. It slipped from their hands and bounced on the ground.
“And what does a nun do with a motorcycle!” thundered the captain.
“I needed a way to get to the general’s camp,” said Mara easily. She pushed her chin up, just as she imagined Sister Jean Marie would do. “One of our parishioners, a very humble and kind man, took pity on me when I said I would walk, and — ”
“Silence! Every word you utter is a lie.”
The captain walked over to examine the motorbike. He picked it up, frowned at it, then let it drop back into the dirt. He ordered the soldiers to confiscate it.
Mara sensed a compromise was in the works — he was going to take the bike but let her go. The swap was okay with her — she’d make it up to its owner somehow.
The worst thing to do, though, would be to admit that the unspoken deal was a good one.
“Where are you going with the motorcycle?!” she shouted.
“Nuns have no need for such things,” answered the captain.
“It’s not ours. It is our parishioner’s. It is his only possession.”
“Then he should have been more careful with it.”
The captain walked away, striding toward a knot of other soldiers, who were interrogating the refugees. Mara waited for a second, then scooped up her passport and jumped in the truck, happy to have gotten off so cheaply.
9
