the general and his party.
Zeus got into the second car, sitting with the general’s administrative assistant, a prim but extremely efficient middle-aged woman with the unfortunate nickname of Candy.
If “Candy” fit any woman in the world, it was surely not this one. For Zeus, the name evoked images of a gum-cracking, lipstick-smearing woman whose clothes were always a size too tight. This Candy wore a skirt that came to her calves and glasses so thickly framed that even a librarian would have found them unfashionable.
Staying on her good side was highly advisable, since practically everything the general did went through her or Christian. And cultivating Christian was not an option.
“Hot, huh?” said Zeus as the doors were closed.
“I expected worse.”
“So, how long have you worked for the general?”
Candy turned and gave him a look that implied he had just asked a question requiring code-word clearance.
“A while, huh?” he said when she didn’t answer.
“A while.”
“Good boss?”
“My boss is the U.S. taxpayer.”
“Good answer,” offered Zeus, ending his stab at making conversation. Not even Rosen could have charmed this battle-ax.
The procession drove a few hundred yards down the concrete, passing behind an empty military bus before stopping in front of a Thai Navy helicopter. Zeus got out and followed the others into the helicopter. The chopper took off before he even got seated, rising quickly and turning hard.
“Wow,” said Zeus as he bumped against Christian, who was seated next to him. Though it was used as a VIP transport, the accommodations on the chopper were cramped and basic. The seat cushion had less foam in it than a cheap throwaway sunshade.
“Antiterrorist tactic, Major,” said Perry, who was sitting in front of him. “We’re in a war zone. Have to get used to that.”
“Yes, sir.”
The base didn’t look as if it was ramping up for war, particularly. A number of warships — patrol craft sized, mostly — sat tied up at their docks, all nestled together: an easy target for an enemy. And the traffic on the field looked no heavier than what one might see at a base in Alaska on a Sunday afternoon in July.
The port-area industries gave way to jungle as they moved inland. Suddenly the helo tipped hard to the right. The trees seemed to part, and a large green field appeared. They put down quickly, then scrambled out the door to another waiting chopper, this one a Sikorsky with no markings. In seconds they were airborne, and rushing to the northeast.
Their destination was Korat, a Thai air force base where a Korean Airlines jet waited on the tarmac for them. The jet was an actual Korean Airlines plane, leased by the U.S. so the arrival in Vietnam would be low-key. The pilots were U.S. Air Force captains, and shortly after takeoff they called General Perry into the cockpit to brief him on their flight plan.
Perry had Christian and Zeus go up with him. The cockpit was cramped, tighter than Zeus had imagined it would be — it was the first time he’d ever been in a cockpit of anything other than a C-130 or a helicopter.
Originally, they had planned to land in Da Nang — the old U.S. Marine base was now a Vietnamese airport — since it was one of the few airports in the country that had not been damaged by Chinese bombing. But the Vietnamese had done some emergency repairs to the Hanoi airport, and had passed the word that they preferred the delegation to land there.
“That’s where we’re landing then,” said Perry.
“It’s still very vulnerable to a Chinese attack,” said Christian. “And it’s got to be in their crosshairs.”
“We’re not going to score any points by landing in Da Nang,” said Perry. “And we’re going to need all the points we can get. We’re here to help them, but make no mistake, gentlemen: from their point of view, we’re the ones who aren’t to be trusted.”
That was the end of the conversation.
While the holes on the runway had been patched, the damage to the airport was considerable. There were still fires burning as the jet prepared to land, and much of Zeus’s view of the city and nearby countryside was obscured by coils of thick black smoke. The landing was so bumpy he was sure they were going to crash.
A Vietnamese army captain met them on the tarmac. The officer’s low rank could have been interpreted as a snub, but Perry took it in stride. Nor did he balk at riding in the open jeep waiting for him.
Except for Captain Ford — Perry’s personal bodyguard and the head of the security detail — the rest of the small delegation had to follow in a bus. Christian started grumbling about the lack of proper protocol as soon as they were moving. Zeus was more concerned by the amount of damage he saw as they headed toward the city.
When most people thought of the damage wrought by a bombing, they tended to think in absolutes — whole cities or at least swaths of them wiped out. Images from history, especially World War II, reinforced this notion; the mind tended to remember the images of block after block of rubble.
But the reality of modern warfare was somewhat different. Smart weapons such as laser- and GPS-guided missiles were more discreet than the free-falling bombs dropped by B-17’s during World War II. The destruction they wrought, especially in the early stages of a conflict, tended to be confined to specific places, and generally these were military targets.
When planners talked about this, they tended to focus on how desirable it was to limit collateral damage. Civilians, they would say, were not the targets and should be spared. The main lesson of World War II — that there are no real noncombatants in a war — was an inconvenient and irrelevant point.
Zeus looked at the matter differently. Waging a war was like running a budget. Missiles, GPS bombs, even unguided iron bombs, were all very expensive. The side that got the most bang for its buck — pun only partially intended — usually won. So you didn’t waste your weapons destroying apartment buildings, or killing civilians for that matter. You used them on high-value targets, targets that played a direct role in your enemy’s ability to wage war.
The airport runways were an example, as were its fuel farms and the hangars where its military aircraft were stored. All had been hit. So had the small industrial parks just outside the airport, which was where most of the fires were still raging. These were of lesser immediate value, especially since few if any made anything related to the military.
But to attack the hotels and apartment buildings lining the highway to Hanoi? Building after building had been torn in half. Some looked as if they had been bitten by a large monster; others were little more than rubble. They hadn’t been accidentally targeted, either; too many were in ruins for that.
This told Zeus two things about the men running the war: (1) they were absolutely ruthless, probably determined to kill as many Vietnamese as possible and scare the rest, and (2) they had a large amount of resources at their disposal, much more than Zeus had anticipated.
Much more than the Red Dragon simulation called for. And China was practically unbeatable there.
Zeus kept his conclusions to himself as they drove through the city. They stopped in front of the Sofitel Metropole Hotel, one of the most famous and oldest of the hotels in the city. It had escaped the bombing unscathed.
The American ambassador was waiting for General Perry just outside the door, to the evident discomfort of her security detail. There were no Vietnamese army or police, plainclothes or otherwise, nearby. In fact, the entire street seemed deserted, even though it was the middle of the day.
“General, I’m glad your flight was a good one,” said the ambassador, shaking his hand. “A good decision to land in Hanoi.”
Ambassador Melanie Behrens was a short woman, barely five feet. A leather pocketbook hung by a strap from her shoulder. She clutched one end of it the way a soldier might hold a gun.
“Is this where they’re putting us up?” asked the general.
“No. You’ll stay at the embassy. Most of the government buildings were bombed overnight. They’ve moved some of the operations here.”
