Shadows of War

now, would he be able to run close enough to grab the fallen soldiers’ weapons before their comrades came? How many of them were there?

“Josh — do you hear me? I know you’re near. Come on — we have to hurry.”

“How many of you are there?”

“Right now there’s only me. Outside I have four men. Josh — you can trust me.”

“Bullshit!”

* * *

Mara stretched to keep the flashlight as high as possible, hoping it would illuminate more of the tunnel. She couldn’t see where he was, but it must not be too far away, maybe just a few inches beyond the dark circle ahead.

“Josh? There’s nothing to be afraid of.” Mara started forward. “I understand why you’re worried. I had the same fear myself. But if you were Chinese, you would have shot me by now. And vice versa. If I was trying to trap you, I could have rolled a grenade down the shaft.”

“You bastards!” he shouted.

Mara threw herself down, sprawling on the floor of the tunnel a second before Josh fired two bursts in her direction. The bullets were well over her head, but as they flew into the roof of the tunnel they rained splinters down from the ceiling.

The LED had slipped from her hand as she landed, spinning as it hit the floor and sailing toward Josh. She saw a figure crouched against the blackness ahead, starting to rise.

She started to get up, only to throw herself back down as Josh fired again.

* * *

Josh felt the rifle click empty. He launched himself forward, desperate, determined to sacrifice himself for the girl. It was the only thing he had now, the only reason for his existence. He flew through the air, aiming at the dark shadow in front of him, his feet barely touching the ground.

He bowled the shadow over, wrestling desperately, struggling. It had more energy than he thought, more power — he hadn’t hurt it at all, maybe hadn’t even wounded it.

“Stop, you idiot!” it yelled. “Stop. I’m here to help you, damn it.”

The shadow flung him around, twisting him to the ground. It jumped on him.

Josh’s energy fled. The gash from the barbed wire reopened, shrieking with pain. Everything he’d suffered over the past several days, his lack of food, of sleep, every injury, sapped his strength, left him weak and powerless. He lay on the ground, completely drained, ready for death.

* * *

Mara felt the fight go out of him. She gave him a hard smash to the jaw just in case, then pushed backward, rising and starting to pull him with her. As she took a step, something flew into her back — a wild animal, scratching and biting.

“Off!” she yelled, swirling around, unsure what was attacking her.

It was the size of a small bear, with all its fury.

A girl?

“Em!” yelled Mara, speaking Vietnamese as she tried to restrain the tornado. “Little sister, stop. I’m your friend. I’m a friend of Josh’s. Stop. Stop!”

The girl continued to hit her. Mara managed to grab her shirt and push her against the wall, trying not to hurt her yet desperate to stop her so they could leave. Finally the child’s fury expired. She deflated, falling against Mara like a rag doll.

“We have to get out of here,” said Mara. “Josh — Josh, are you all right?”

He groaned, and pushed himself back against the wall.

“Come on,” she told him.

“I don’t trust you.”

“If I was working with the Chinese, would I have come in here alone? God, you’d be dead by now. Come on.”

Mara scooped up her AK-47 and flashlight and began trotting up the mine shaft. Looking back as she reached the first arc of light, she saw Josh following, the girl clutching his side. He’d picked up his gun and held it by the barrel, practically dragging it along.

Mara threw herself down near the mouth of the cave, crawling to the entrance on her hands and knees. It was eerily silent outside.

“Jimmy, where are you?” she asked over the team radio.

There was no response. She moved out of the cave mouth cautiously, worried that the Chinese had overwhelmed Choi’s people and had set an ambush. But there was no one there.

“Come on, come on,” she said to the others, waving them from the cave. “We have a truck down on the road.”

* * *

The helicopter had crashed into the trees near the road, lodging itself about ten meters off the ground. The grenade that had hit it started a fire near the engine compartment; within seconds it consumed the entire helicopter.

As Jing Yo ran toward the wreckage, he heard the anguished scream of one of the crewmen stuck in the aircraft.

“Jump!” he yelled, even as threw himself onto a tree trunk below the wreck and began shimmying upward.

Jing Yo got about halfway up when the chopper’s fuel tank exploded, shaking him and a good part of the wreckage from the tree. Tumbling, he smacked against another tree, rebounding into a thick bush a few feet from the ground.

He lay twisted in the branches for several minutes, his wits scrambled.

“Lieutenant, are you all right?”

Sergeant Wu’s voice roused him like the cold air the monks would let into the dormitories after taking the novices’ sheets. Jing Yo pushed to get up.

“Careful, you’re about two meters from the ground,” said Wu.

Jing Yo brought his feet down, gradually regaining his senses as he slithered through the leaves to the ground. He took a wobbly step, then stopped and forced a deep breath into his lungs.

“You okay, Lieutenant?”

Rather than answering, Jing Yo looked up. Only a third of the helicopter remained in the trees. The rest was a tangled mess, scattered in a haphazard circle around the area.

“There was a crewman,” said Jing Yo.

“They’re all dead. Come on — our guys are on the road. Let’s find who did this.”

Sergeant Wu led him back to the shoulder of the road, where the rest of the team had gathered, crouching in a defensive position. Jing Yo took out his satellite radio and gave it to Ai Gua.

“Find out what the situation is,” he told the private. “Get division to talk to the helicopters. Where is our enemy?”

“There are soldiers in the jungle near the hill,” Ai Gua said a few minutes later. “And near the trucks.”

“We take the trucks first,” said Jing Yo.

* * *

Disoriented and still weak, Josh followed Mara out of the cave. She was a big woman, nearly as tall as he was, and dressed like a Chinese soldier. But what she’d said had to be true — if she was on the Chinese side she’d have killed him by now.

“My people are down by the road,” she told him, holding out her hand to stop him as he followed. “Wait.”

Josh heard the pop-pop-pop of automatic weapons as he squatted down. Little M? clung to his back, her body trembling.

“I’m Mara, by the way,” said the CIA officer, holding out her hand. “Mara Duncan.”

“Josh MacArthur.”

“Yeah, I know. You have video, right?”