Stevens came over and wrapped his arm around him. Neither of them spoke.
The medic continued to work on Kerfer. He had gauze and bandages and tape.
Did he have magic? Josh wondered. Because that’s what they really needed — magic to get them the hell out of here, to take them back, far back.
He’d killed the gook with the grenade launcher. Or he’d killed a gook.
A gook?
Or a human being?
Someone who was trying to kill him. That’s whom he’d killed. Someone who wanted him dead.
“It was a girl,” said one of the crewmen.
Josh looked up at him.
“We got it on the chopper video. It was a woman.”
“I killed a girl?” Josh asked. He sat on the bench. M? sat close beside him.
“You saved our lives, Josh,” said Mara. She came over and kissed him on the cheek. “Thank you.”
3
There is but one purpose.
The words of his mentors came to Jing Yo in the fading beat of the helicopter’s rotors. They were fact and recrimination, accusation and inspiration, a call to return from the path where he had strayed.
Hyuen Bo was dead, killed by the man he had pursued. Her death was Jing Yo’s fault, as surely as if he had put the bullet through her skull himself.
Her long dark hair, the white skin of her wrist — the image burned into his brain. But already the stench of death had claimed her, the smell of rot and return.
He despaired.
“I must move myself,” he said aloud.
In the next instant, Jing Yo jumped to his feet and began to run. He fled across the field, across the road and through a yard, down the soft green fairways, over the rocks and to the boat. He moved so fast that his conscious thoughts trailed far behind, outpaced.
By the time his brain caught up to his body he was an hour upstream, nearly out of gas. He found a small marina and would have stolen fuel had a man not appeared on the dock and offered to sell it.
“You look battered,” said the man. “Were you in the shelling?”
Jing Yo blinked at him, handing over his spare gas cans.
“There are rumors that the Chinese attacked the shore,” said the man. “Missiles and artillery from ships. Did that happen?”
“There was an attack,” said Jing Yo.
“Where are you going? Saigon?”
“I don’t know.”
“There have been attacks there as well. You’re better off in the highlands. They are forming bands of resistance. A young man like you would be of some worth.”
“That’s where I’m going,” said Jing Yo, not sure what else to say. “To the hills. To fight.”
“I thought so,” said the man grimly.
He gave him the fuel for free, then pressed him to take some food and a few thousand dong.
“We are counting on you,” said the man, tears in his eyes. “Go with our prayers.”
A policeman stood on the first dock Jing Yo passed. There was one on the second as well. Jing Yo continued up the waterway until he found a jetty where no one was waiting to ask questions.
He had the submachine gun and a half dozen rounds of ammunition in a rucksack. If questioned he planned to say he had been given them by a friend in the militia, for protection; he had no idea if this would be an adequate explanation.
Soldiers and police guarded the intersections and patrolled in front of storefronts, even in Chinatown. Knots of militia clustered around trucks or kept the curious from smoldering ruins. Last night’s marauders had returned to become the day’s order keepers. Some were cleaning up the mess they or their comrades had made — Jing Yo passed two work crews of militiamen sweeping glass from the streets and replacing broken windows with large sheets of wood.
They were acting under orders, he was sure. Which would last longer — their hatred for the Chinese, or their respect for authority?
Getting into the area where Ms. Hu lived was not easy. Jing Yo had to circle around the center of the city on foot. There were several places where he might have slipped across the barriers to take a shortcut, but he decided the risk wasn’t worth it. The police were not bothering people who went about their business, so long as they didn’t go where they weren’t supposed to. And Jing Yo knew that the less he had to explain to anyone, the less chance he had of being apprehended.
The bicycles and motorbikes were still relatively plentiful on the streets. Their riders seemed more anxious than even on the day before, less willing to yield to pedestrians or change their course as another vehicle approached. Private cars, always a minority in the city, were almost nonexistent, as were commercial trucks.
Jing Yo walked through the precincts of the city, absorbing not just the sights and sounds, but the jittery emotions of the people. They moved mostly with purpose, not meandering — he guessed they were getting things in order, buying food and water for a siege, making sure they had batteries and other emergency supplies. He saw no one smiling.
The missiles and bombs had brought a powdery, metallic smell to the air, something close to fire and yet not completely burned. The sun was bright, and the damp air hot.
Three men in Western jeans and soccer shirts leaned against an old pickup truck on the dirt road near the fuel tanks around the corner from Ms. Hu’s compound. Jing Yo walked toward them, his gaze fixed in the distance. One of the men stepped toward him, hand on the back of his hip. A bulge on the opposite side of his belt betrayed his revolver.
“I have business with Ms. Hu,” he told the man.
“Ms. Hu? I don’t believe we know of a Ms. Hu.”
“Oh,” said Jing Yo, easily guessing this was a lie.
He took a step forward. The man stepped in front of him.
“Listen, friend,” said the man. “This is not a good place for you.”
“Nonetheless, I have business,” Jing Yo told the man.
If the man had gone for his pistol, Jing Yo would have killed him on the spot. He would have made short work of the others as well.
In truth, he thirsted for provocation. He wanted to unleash some of the anger he felt. But instead of fighting, the man took out a small radio.
“Your name?” asked the man.
“Jing Yo.”
Whatever the person on the other side said surprised the man.
“Go on,” he told Jing Yo, holding both hands up as if in surrender.
