10
One of the embassy employees, a Vietnamese woman in her early twenties, came down the stairs. She was thin, dressed in a skirt whose looseness somehow managed to emphasize the narrow contours of her body. Very pretty, yet brittle-looking at the same time.
“Major Murphy?” she asked.
“Call me Zeus.”
She smiled. Zeus wondered if there was some sort of rule against fraternizing with embassy employees, and if there was, whether she’d be worth breaking it.
Almost certainly.
“The general would like to see you upstairs.”
“Great. After you,” said Zeus.
She blushed, actually blushed — Zeus knew opportunity when he saw it. But before he could take advantage, before he could even admire the rise of her hips up the steps, he was rudely interrupted by Major Win Christian, who shouted from the front hall behind him.
“Yo, Zeus — we leaving today or what?”
“Ask your boss,” said Zeus.
“My boss. Yeah.” Christian walked to the foot of the steps, lowering his voice. “You’re his golden-haired boy.”
Christian was Perry’s chief of staff, and resented Zeus’s inclusion as Perry’s special adviser in Hanoi. Zeus had never been too crazy about Christian, though his opinion had warmed ever so slightly during their mission together to help the SEALs and Josh MacArthur. They’d taken a van and driven past an enemy ambush to grab them.
“The general just asked me to come and talk to him,” said Zeus. “He’s on with the president.”
Zeus didn’t actually think the president wanted to talk to him; it was just a way of tweaking Christian. He jogged up the steps, looking for the staffer with the magic hips. Instead he found one of the American employees, a middle-aged male CIA officer who naturally claimed not to be a CIA officer. The man led him to the secure room.
Zeus was surprised to find that General Perry was still on the line with the president, and even more surprised when Perry put him on the line.
“Mr. President,” said Zeus.
“You need to push to talk, Zeus,” said Perry. “And tone down the exuberance a bit. It’s not quite professional.”
“Yes, sir.” Zeus found the button. “Mr. President?”
“Major Murphy, good to talk to you again,” said Greene. “Nice work with our scientist friend. Excellent.”
“I just drove the van, sir.”
“Here’s why the general and I wanted to talk to you. Everyone agrees that the Chinese are going to launch a sea assault on Vietnam’s eastern coast.”
“Yes, sir. They have all those landing ships on Hainan, the island to the east. And meanwhile, their carriers — ”
“Your job,” said President Greene, not allowing himself to be interrupted, “is to stop the invasion.”
“Um, stop it?”
“Yes. Come up with a plan to stop it. Then get the Vietnamese to implement it.”
“I’m not sure it can be done, sir. The Vietnamese — their navy is, uh, tiny to nonexistent.”
“Then use something different.” The president sounded like a high school football coach, telling him to find a way around the blitz. “Think outside of the box. That’s your job. You’re good at it.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You figured out how to stop the ground advance,” added Greene.
“Well, temporarily.”
“Come up with something for the ships.”
“I’ll do my best, sir.”
“That’s all we ask. General?”
“I’m done on my end,” said Perry.
“Very well. Keep up the good work, Zeus,” added President Greene. “We’re counting on you.”
The screen went blank. Zeus looked at Perry.
“It’s kind of impossible,” said Zeus.
“I thought it’d be better if you heard it directly from him,” said the general.
11
Mara had arrived in Vietnam knowing the CIA station in Hanoi had been compromised, so the theft of the money shouldn’t have come as much of a surprise. And the fact that the box was actually where it was supposed to be could be interpreted as a good sign. Since her goal was simply to get out of Vietnam, whatever else was going on didn’t really matter. She’d learned long ago to focus on the goal rather than the messy stuff it took to get there.
Still, despite the fact that the U.S. was now covertly supplying advice and aid to Vietnam, she’d been told explicitly not to rely on the Vietnamese for help, not even transportation. The implication wasn’t simply that they had a different agenda than the U.S. did: the Chinese were legendary in their ability to penetrate Asian governments and their militaries, as Mara had learned to her detriment time and again in Malaysia. Asking the Vietnamese for help might very well be the same as asking the Chinese for help.
Her suspicions and doubts wrapped themselves tighter and tighter as she drove her scooter over to the shop Phai had mentioned to sell the sat phones. Mara didn’t particularly trust Phai, either, even though she knew him from Thailand. She rode around the block twice, making sure she wasn’t followed, then parked in an alley about a block away. Even so, she circled around on foot to make sure there wasn’t an ambush waiting.
Under other circumstances, Mara might have simply left the sat phones in the city somewhere. But she needed money as well as misdirection.
The fantasies she’d had as a child about being a spy — she’d grown up on
Gold shops were common in the city, combination pawnbrokers and banks as well as jewelers. Like others, the owner of Ha Trung Finest conducted several other businesses on the side concurrently — tourist knickknacks and bottled water were featured in the window, along with hand-woven place mats and a rug.
He offered her fifty thousand dong apiece for the two phones — a total of roughly six dollars.
“Be serious,” scolded Mara. She was in no mood to bargain.
