Edge of War

“Are we going east?” asked Jing Yo.

“South. Don’t worry. You’ll go out where planned.”

Jing Yo waited. The flak from below had not abated. He took a slow breath, counseling the muscles in his body to relax. They had been battered severely over the past several days; they would be battered again in the next few.

Jing Yo had chosen to carry out the mission by himself. This was partly a practical matter. It seemed to him that it would be easier to slip into the city under the cover of darkness, and with dawn rapidly approaching — it was already almost six — even the few minutes it would have taken to return to his unit’s temporary barracks at the captured Vietnamese; base and have one of his men gather his things could not be spared.

Even with more time, Jing Yo would most likely have chosen to come alone. He trusted most of the men in his squad, and could have found one or two on short notice worthy of such a difficult mission. But he had been trained to act alone, and preferred doing so.

Alone, there was less chance of a random error preventing him from accomplishing his mission. Alone, he could focus on the task at hand, and not worry about an underling’s welfare. For even on a mission such as this, a commander had responsibilities to his people.

The nose of the plane tilted upward. They were getting close.

“The flak trucks are very close to the first position,” said the pilot. “There will be ground patrols there, guarding them, and perhaps they will see you. Would you prefer one of the fallback zones?”

“Which?”

“I can drop you exactly two kilometers south of Bay Mau Lake,” said the pilot. “Will that do?”

“It is fine.”

“The Vietnamese have moved all of their army headquarters south of the city,” said the pilot. He was back to being friendly. “They have bunkers. They’re out there, three kilometers south. They think we don’t know.”

Jing Yo stared into the darkness. If there were bunkers, they were well beyond the flak, where he couldn’t see them.

“Hold on now, we’re turning,” said the pilot. “We’ll either go into a calm spot in the sky, or we’ll be shot down.”

He laughed.

Jing Yo gripped the handle at the side of the door. The plane jerked hard, making the turn. Its nose came up abruptly. Jing Yo felt his stomach fall toward the bottom of his chest.

They flew like that for five seconds, then ten more. The sky cleared.

“Three hundred meters,” said the pilot. “I’m climbing to five.”

Suddenly the sky filled with searchlights. The pilot cursed. Tracers appeared near the door.

“I’m going,” said Jing Yo, leaning toward the door.

“I can’t let you out here. You’ll be killed!”

“You have no choice,” said Jing Yo, stepping into the night.

5

Central Hanoi

As a newly minted second lieutenant, Zeus Murphy had served in Iraq at the height of the second Gulf War. Much of his time had been spent in Baghdad and the surrounding areas, when suicide bombings and random mortar and rocket attacks were still common. The days had been hell, but he’d always managed to sleep easily at night, even when he was staying outside of what later became the protected Green Zone. In fact, he’d slept through at least two mortar attacks on his building, including one that damaged the room next to his.

It was the same way now, in Hanoi. Perhaps it was the exhilaration of having cobbled together a mission to help the SEALs and CIA officer Mara Duncan retrieve the American scientist. Zeus hadn’t had a “real” mission since making major and being promoted out of Special Forces nearly a year before. Or maybe it was just jet lag. In any event, Zeus had fallen asleep as soon as he hit his mattress. None of the Chinese bombs and missiles, let alone the antiaircraft guns stationed across the street, put the slightest dent in his slumber.

The hotel called itself, without ironic intent, Hanoi’s Finest Hotel. The title was impressive in Vietnamese, where the characters were drawn and arranged in a way that could be interpreted as having several lucky meanings. The hotel building itself was somewhat less so. It consisted of three different sections, all built by the French during their occupation. The oldest, taken up by the reception hall and offices, had some slight pretensions toward Architecture, with a capital A. There were columns and plasterwork so elaborate that decades’ worth of white paint couldn’t entirely obliterate them. The draperies and rugs were threadbare but their patterns hinted, if not at opulence, at least at some appreciation of design and color.

But the two additions, which folded out from each other in a train behind the oldest, were utilitarian block houses, with low ceilings and narrow hallways. The rooms were small even by Vietnamese standards: the door hit Zeus’s single bed when it was opened more than halfway.

The hotel had somehow managed to escape damage during the war with America. The Vietnamese considered this a sign of its superiority, making prominent mention of the fact in not one but two placards in the lobby. In fact, most buildings south of the central business areas had not been damaged. As inaccurate as American bombing sometimes was, even the massive B-52 raids that dropped bushels of unguided iron bombs had always been aimed away from obvious civilian areas.

Neither Zeus nor General Harland Perry, his boss, thought the Chinese would take such pains in this war.

Perry had been put up in a guesthouse a mile away. His driver and his security people were staying with him. The rest of his small staff — Zeus, Major Win Christian, and two sergeants with expertise in intelligence and communications — had been put up in the hotel after a brief stay at the U.S. embassy.

Officially, they weren’t in Vietnam. They wore civilian clothes, and in the unlikely case that someone asked what they were doing, had been instructed to give vague replies about being attached to the embassy.

Unofficially, they were there as observers to see what the hell the Chinese were up to, and possibly learn if the Chinese claims that Vietnam had started the war were true.

Secretly, and in reality, they were there under the direct orders of the president of the United States, to do whatever they could to keep the Chinese from rolling through Vietnam.

“Major?”

Zeus rolled over in the bed.

Jenna was with him — in his dream. He pushed himself against her side, then wrapped his arm around her, his left hand searching for her breast.

“Major Murphy?”

Gradually, Zeus realized there was someone else in the room. A woman.

But not Jenna. And not in his bed.

Damn.

“Zeus?”

“Mmmmmm,” he mumbled.

“Zeus? Are you awake?”

A hand touched him. Big, warm, somewhat soft.

“Zeus?”

“Mmmm.”

“Zeus, I need to talk to you.”

Zeus rolled back over and opened his eyes. Mara Duncan stood next to the bed. The door to his room was open to the hall.

“Mara,” he mumbled.

“Zeus. Come on, wake up.”

“How’d you get in?”