fixing itself on its final target, rising so it could dive down in X-marks-the-spot fashion. All he knew was that a missile had suddenly appeared very close to the rear quarter of his aircraft. He did what any self-respecting pilot would do when taken completely by surprise — he hit his flares and his chaff, turned the plane hard into an evasive maneuver, and prayed to his ancient family gods.
And his dry cleaner.
The Tomahawk hit dead center on the bridge, exploding it. Four seconds later, a second missile arrived, smashing what was left of the northern terminus to smithereens.
In the meantime, the MiG had fled.
“Bridge is down,” said Zeus. “Get east — check the dam.”
“The dam is gone — look,” said Thieu, pointing at the side.
The destruction of the two dams created a wall of water nearly fifty feet high, which rolled down the vast expanse of the lake, gathering strength as it went. From three thousand feet, the man-made tsunami looked like a small, frothing ripple in a puddle, but Zeus had only to look at the sides of the reservoir to judge its real impact. Buildings and trees that had been along the shore disappeared in a gulp as it moved. Both sides of the road where the bridge had been were swamped by the wave. The water continued, flooding the valley.
“Holy shit,” said Zeus. “Wow.”
“Job done?” asked Thieu.
Zeus pulled up his glasses and looked at Highway 6 north of the bridge. There were trucks on it, driving south.
Not trucks, but tanks. Six of them, with a command vehicle. The vanguard of the Chinese force.
Thieu circled, and they watched as the tanks stopped. Then the lead vehicle lurched forward into the stream, followed by a second and a third.
Five yards from the road, the rear end of the first tank swung east. Within seconds it was drifting in the water. The second tank simply sank. The third stopped on the bank.
Thieu couldn’t resist peppering them all with his cannon before heading back to the base.
18
To get out of here. Maybe they should just start walking and the hell with waiting for the night, as Mara seemed to feel.
Or help. What more help did they need?
When he got back to the shed Mara was sitting next to M?, listening as the girl spoke. They were so intent that he didn’t want to interrupt; instead, he took a seat on the ground next to them. Mara had found more rice and oranges in the basement storage area, and cooked them together in the pot where she’d cooked the rice earlier.
He helped himself to the concoction, listening as the girl spoke, even though he had no idea what she was saying. The words seemed to rush out of her mouth, as if they were pushing against one another. She gestured with her hands, motioning up and down, pointing, mimicking, illustrating her narrative with her emphatic body language. Her eyes were wide and darting, as if she were watching what she was describing, conjuring it from the shadows in the room around them.
“M? was born in a small village on the other side of a river or a stream, I’m not sure of the word,” explained Mara when the girl finally paused. “It wasn’t too far from where you found her, or where she found you.”
“Is this what happened to her?”
“Yes.”
The soldiers had come at night. They seemed to be Vietnamese, or at least one of them had spoken Vietnamese. But clearly something was wrong. The villagers — about two dozen people lived in the small community, all related to one another through blood or marriage — were taken out of their houses and told to wait near a truck that sat in the middle of the settlement. The soldiers didn’t say where they were going.
M? was scared. She wanted to bring her blanket with her — it had been a special blanket that she had had since she was a baby. The soldiers said she could not.
As the people were being marched into line, M? decided to go back for it. She snuck away, not thinking that anyone was watching. But someone was — as she darted toward the house, the soldiers began shouting.
Then firing.
Petrified, M? ran into the jungle, dodging and darting through the trees in the darkness, running until she couldn’t run anymore. In the meantime, the soldiers had killed everyone in the line.
She had caused all the deaths. It was her fault that her brothers and sisters, parents and relatives, had all died.
M? collapsed in tears. Both Mara and Josh held her, trying to console her.
“It wasn’t her fault,” said Josh. “Tell her that.”
“I don’t have all the words,” said Mara.
“Tell her.”
“I’m trying.”
He’d felt the same when his parents died. He still felt that way, deep down, after all these years. It was a deep pit of regret and guilt that could never be filled, even though he knew, logically, that it was the killers’ fault, not his.
“Tell her it wasn’t her fault,” repeated Josh.
10
“I’ll give you a precise location,” said Peter Lucas. “You’ll have realtime data down to the millimeter when you’re in the air.”
“I fuckin’ better.”
Lucas pushed his chair from the console. He liked working with the SEALs because they got results. But there was always a price to be paid in terms of ego. The most easygoing SEAL held anyone who was not another SEAL in contempt.
The man on the screen, Lieutenant Ric Kerfer, was hardly easygoing. Kerfer wasn’t civil even to other SEALs.
But he was absolutely the man to rely on in this sort of situation. Lucas had worked with him before, with excellent results. There were even indications that Kerfer
Still, he was one grouchy and disrespectful SOB.
“You arrange exfiltration yet?” Kerfer asked.
“At the moment, you’re going to have to walk out,” said Lucas.
“Fuck that.”
“I can’t get a helicopter in there,” said Lucas calmly. If he had been able to get a chopper, he wouldn’t need the SEALs. “I thought maybe you’d be able to steal local transport.”
“You just told me the area was evacuated. What did these people use to get out of there? You think they
