Shadows of War

No, three.”

“Will you leave your phone on?”

“It will be on in three hours.”

“It would be more helpful — ”

Josh slapped the phone off and put it in his pocket.

“Come on, M?,” he said. “Let’s find a better place to hide.”

12

Northern Vietnam

Mara ran toward the gunfire, AK-47 poised. The gunfire had a very familiar ring to it — a thick, almost bell-like sound that she associated with the Chinese Type 99 assault rifle, the upgraded bullpup-style gun China had developed and “sold” to the rebels in Malaysia.

Not good.

Her muscles tensed, her vision narrowed. She sprinted from cover to cover, ducking behind large trees, staying as low to the ground as possible. There was another road through the jungle ahead, maybe thirty meters away.

By the time Mara slid in behind the broken trunk of a large tree near the road, the shooting had stopped. She waited there for a moment, ducking her head left and right to see, trying to find an angle that might reveal what was going on.

Nothing.

Mara eased forward, finger edging against the rifle’s trigger, resting there ever so lightly.

Something moved on the left. She spun, dropped to her knee — and just barely kept herself from firing.

“Ho-ho, you take time catching up,” said Jimmy Choi. “All the excitement done.”

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

Mara’s curse only made Jimmy laugh harder.

“What the hell is so funny?” she asked. “I could have shot you!”

“You’re a professional. You wouldn’t shoot.”

“Goddamn it.”

“Come on. We have something for you.”

Still seething, Mara followed the mercenary out of the jungle onto a hard-packed road. A Chinese EQ2050 Hanma — the Chinese version of the Hummer, also known as a Mengshi or Dongfeng Hanma — sat just off the road. Four Chinese soldiers had been killed in the field. Jimmy’s men dragged the dead bodies into the jungle.

“One of us not a good shot,” said Jimmy, pointing at a body that was stained with blood. “Bad luck for us. We have only three uniforms.”

“You did this for the uniforms? You took off, took all this risk, for the uniforms?”

“Hanma big bonus. Chinese Hummer. Voom, voom.”

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. No. No. You have to tell me what the hell you’re doing. Don’t you understand? You work for me.”

Jimmy Choi laughed.

“Don’t laugh at me. Damn it — you don’t just take off like that.”

“We get job done.” Jimmy shrugged.

“Sure, if they don’t stop us.”

“Bad luck for them they stop us.” He pointed to one of the bodies. “Those would fit you. You try. We close our eyes.”

* * *

They took the Chinese Hanma as well as the troop truck, threading their way north with help from Jimmy Choi’s images. Except that it squeezed her boobs, the uniform fit fairly well. She didn’t look very Chinese, however, and the general strategy was to avoid getting very close to the Chinese army if possible.

Soon after they stole the truck and the uniforms, Lucas called in with another update on the Chinese situation. They were continuing to concentrate their efforts farther south and west; the only units in Mara’s area were small scouting parties, probing defenses and looking for resources that might be useful.

He gave her a precise location for the scientist — two miles from a Chinese forward operating base being constructed in Lai Chau Province.

“Well at least he’s not in it,” she said sarcastically.

“They actually don’t have a lot of troops in the area around the base,” said Lucas. “They’re focusing their efforts farther south.”

Mara knew the troop estimate had come from analysts who were basically making educated guesses from satellite photos. She knew better than to trust them.

* * *

Shortly after eleven in the morning, she and Jimmy Choi’s team reached the heavy jungle area surrounding the Hoang Lien Son nature preserve. They went up a small streambed, stopping near a small copse about a quarter mile from the road to rest. Twelve kilometers separated them from the spot where Lucas had said the scientist was hiding.

“Hey, glamour girl, we’ve been waiting for you,” said DeBiase, answering a split second after the connection went through. “What’s going on?”

“You tell me. Where’s our subject?”

“Hiding. We’ll contact him as soon as the sun goes down.”

“You sure he can last until then?”

“He tells us he’s fine.”

“This guy’s for real, right, Million Dollar Man? Because if he’s not, I’m going to be seriously upset.”

“We’ll have a full brief for you tonight, Mara. We should be able to get you in direct contact with him right before the rendezvous. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“Everything going well?”

“As well as could be expected.”

“What do you think of Jimmy?”

“He’s a nutjob.”

“In a good way, I hope.”

“Not necessarily.”

“He’s one of the best,” said DeBiase, a little too cheerfully.

“That’s damning with faint praise,” said Mara. “I’m going to get some sleep. Call me if anything changes.”

“You’ll be the first to know.”

13

Beijing

The news that the Chinese troops had massacred several villages did not surprise Premier Cho Lai. The men were peasants, poorly educated, and raised to believe that all races were inferior to the Chinese. The incitements that their commanders had given them to join the battle had undoubtedly pushed them to believe that their enemy was little more than rats to be eradicated as any exterminator would.

But the implication of the message that his intelligence network had intercepted — that there was a Western witness who had evidence and who might be believed in the UN — was more problematic. While the premier was