Edge of War

“I don’t think so. It doesn’t look like they’re taking the war too seriously here. They’re ignoring it.”

“Can you get gas?”

“I don’t know. Maybe Bangkok can find some.”

Little Joe, Squeaky, and Stevens came up to the terrace with an armful of food and beer. They’d walked around half the town to make sure they weren’t followed, buying supplies before returning.

“Don’t go too crazy with the beer,” said Kerfer, grabbing a pair out of the bag. “We may be moving out tonight.”

“Who was the guy in the park?” Mara asked.

“Just some slant-eye local,” said Little Joe. “But he was kind of close. I didn’t like it.”

“You just wanted to hit somebody,” said Squeaky.

“Maybe.”

“Don’t call him a slant-eye,” said Mara.

Kerfer smirked.

“So we leaving, skip, or what?” Stevens asked.

“Me and the spook are working that out,” said Kerfer. “Why don’t you guys go get a little rest? Be ready to leave in an hour.”

“Fuck, an hour,” said Stevens. “Ain’t worth taking a nap.”

“Go get some rest. We’ll wake you up if we have to. Take Josh and Junior down, too.” Kerfer turned to Josh. “Okay? You get some sleep. We’ll wake you up if we’re moving.”

“All right,” said Josh.

“What was so funny?” Mara asked when they had left.

“Which?”

“Slant-eye.”

“Ah, give it a rest, spook.”

Mara saw a dark line growing at the edge of the sky behind him. She stared at it for a moment, not comprehending what she was seeing. It was as if the sky had a fold in it, and the fold was moving, arcing. It dropped sharply below the building.

Kerfer turned around to see what she was staring at.

The city flashed white where the black line had fallen. The sound of the blast came a moment later. The hotel shook with the force.

“Shit,” he said. “More of them, there.”

The missiles were all aimed at the airport. Three more exploded in rapid succession. A massive orange and red flame erupted in the distance.

Mara heard the sound of jets in the distance. They were following up the missile raid with bombs. Antiaircraft batteries began to fire. There were large flares in the distance — missile launches, Mara guessed. Sirens began to wail.

“Gonna be a lot harder for these people to ignore the war now,” said Kerfer.

8

CIA Headquarters, Virginia

Peter Lucas hated being at Loony Corners, his nickname for CIA headquarters. It was his impression that no matter what else was going on in the world, the top priority for everyone in the building was internal politics.

With the exception of the people on the top floor, who were concerned with administration politics as well.

But having been summoned from the field, Lucas did his best to play his role as grizzled field agent, recalled to reinforce whatever opinions were current for the day.

Lucas walked down the glass-lined hallway toward the Starbucks on the first floor. There was free coffee upstairs where he was working, but he preferred the harsher brew Starbucks served.

That and he wanted the walk from the stifling surroundings.

“How’s it going?” Ken Combs asked as he got on line.

“Not bad,” Lucas told Combs, surprised to see him at headquarters. “How about yourself?”

“I could tell stories. But they won’t get me anywhere.”

Lucas knew a few of the stories Combs could tell. They had both been in Baghdad when a conflict with the FBI cost two Americans their lives. Combs had blamed himself for following procedure and notifying the FBI of the situation. Of course, if he hadn’t done that, he would have been fired — and the Americans would probably still have been killed.

“Back for a while?” Lucas asked.

“Back for a bit. Yourself?”

“Not sure.”

“Maybe we should have a beer sometime.”

“Sounds good.”

Lucas bought his coffee, then went back to his desk to prepare a briefing paper for the agency chief, Peter Frost. Lucas liked Frost, largely because he was an unlikely choice for the job: Frost had been a field officer, then rose through the ranks to become the deputy director of operations — the head of covert activity — before retiring. A personal friend of the president, he had been appointed DCI — director, central intelligence — as soon as Greene came into office. While it was certainly a political appointment, Frost was the first director in quite a while to have such an extensive operational pedigree.

On the other hand, Frost had served in Asia two decades before, covering a lot of the ground Lucas did now. Frost’s experiences colored his perceptions, and he tended to micromanage based on things that were dead and buried years ago.

Lucas was worried about Mara. Getting her out of Ho Chi Minh City had looked like a no-brainer just twelve hours before. Now the reports said the country’s situation was deteriorating rapidly. The airport had just been bombed, and the border up near Cambodia was a mess. Vietnamese troops had reportedly been shooting at people trying to flee over the border. Cambodian border guards had done the same.

Lucas returned to the small cubicle he’d been given to prepare his report. With his coffee cooling, he reviewed the military updates from the past hour. When he did, he realized that the destroyer McCampbell was steaming on a direct line for Ho Chi Minh City. It was still far off — but almost close enough, he thought, to send a helicopter to pick Mara and company up.

With a little work, some prompting and arm-twisting.

Lucas jumped up and started for the Secure Communications Room. The phone on his desk rang as he turned back for his coffee.

It was undoubtedly one of Frost’s assistants, asking when the briefing was going to be ready.

“Soon,” said Lucas, grabbing the coffee and rushing to the hall.

10

Ho Chi Minh City

Jing Yo sipped his cup of tea pensively, staring across the plain of darkness before him. The flashes of bombs and secondary explosions turned the night into a cityscape of white staccato. The light seemed to be attacking from below, cracking through the surface. The gunboat on the river behind him began firing its weapons. The bullets were undoubtedly useless, but Jing Yo understood the impulse, the need to respond in some way, to show that you were not merely a victim.

It was another manifestation of ego, an empty gesture born from the temporary world, not the permanent