Edge of War

Ms. Hu was in her garden. It was as if nothing had happened.

“Sit, please,” she told Jing Yo.

“I have no need to sit. Your man tried to kill me. He has met with a regrettable end.”

“So I understand.”

“I require transportation to complete my mission.”

“Where to?”

“To America, I assume.”

While Sun had told him otherwise, Jing Yo suspected that Ms. Hu had either ordered the killing herself, or at a minimum had passed the order on from his commander or Beijing. He knew that he could not trust her, just as he could not trust anyone now, not on his own side or the enemy’s. Indeed, the enemy was more reliable than his friends, for the enemy’s motives were clear and unchanging. By contrast, those belonging to Colonel Sun and Ms. Hu were much more difficult to fathom.

“You think that I can arrange passage to America,” said Ms. Hu. She had the tone of someone making a statement, not asking a question.

“Whether you personally can do it, I could not say.” Jing Yo stared at her face as he spoke, fighting the urge to turn his eyes downward. “But I know it can be done. And I know that my mission has been ordered from the highest authority.”

Ms. Hu took the tiniest sip of tea from her cup.

“You are very stoic,” she told him after returning the cup to the table. “And brave to trust me.”

“I don’t trust you,” said Jing Yo.

“If I tried to kill you once, why would I not try again?”

“If it is my time to die, so be it. You are not the keeper of my fate.”

“You have surrendered to your religion, Jing Yo,” said Ms. Hu. “Is that wise for a commando? To trust to superstition? Obviously the monks didn’t — if they did, they wouldn’t have trained in kung fu. They would have remained in their monastery, praying, those many centuries ago.”

“There are many forms of prayer,” replied Jing Yo.

“It is useless to debate you.” Ms. Hu smiled for the first time. “The monks have taught you all the answers.”

“No answers. Only questions.”

“Trusting me is a way of testing your faith,” said Ms. Hu pointedly. “If I do not kill you, you will assume that your beliefs are correct. You will think that you are a warrior, following the Way, and that the Way calls you to this mission.”

Jing Yo remained silent.

“So you believe I betrayed you,” said Ms. Hu, “and ordered you killed?”

“It is the most logical conclusion.”

“Have you considered that Mr. Tong betrayed us both?” asked Ms. Hu. “He saw killing the American as a way to advance beyond me. You were in the way.”

“What happened does not matter to me,” said Jing Yo. “Only the present is of interest. I seek only the means to complete my duty.”

“You have done a favor for me, eliminating the viper,” said Ms Hu. “Whether you knew it or not. I will see what I can arrange. Go back to the house where I sent you last night. Be ready to leave at a moment’s notice.”

4

Washington, D.C.

The encounter between the McCampbell and the Chinese ships was now being seen around the world, thanks to the Chinese news service, which wasted no time presenting high-definition video to every news organization it could think of, as well as posting a variety of snippets on YouTube. In the Chinese version of things, the American had been aggressive and then turned away; and indeed, from the way the video was edited, it did appear that way.

The American version — much longer and unedited — gave a completely different perspective. Not only did it show the destroyer staying straight and true until after the frigate veered off, but it also caught three Chinese sailors basically running for their lives in the moment before the ships came close.

Greene especially liked that. He considered offering to pay for dry cleaning at a press conference to answer the charges, but decided that would seem a little too cheeky, even for him.

Unfortunately, many of the rest of the world’s leaders had a different response to the exchange than Greene did. The French and Italians wondered why the U.S. was provoking China. India was considering recalling its Washington ambassador for “consultations” — a step not even the Chinese had undertaken. The British prime minister was calling for “considered reflection” — clearly the prime minister was taking the Dalai Lama’s recent visit to London a bit too seriously.

The response that most unsettled Greene, however, came from the U.S. Congress. He expected the opposition to raise holy hell, and they did. Greene was being pilloried as a warmonger. His critics accused him of trying to pick a fight with China, possibly to get out of paying back American debts to the country. He wasn’t exactly sure how that was supposed to work, but in any event he wasn’t surprised. Given that during the campaign his opponents had likened him to Mussolini — ”not smart enough to be Hitler,” snarked several — he considered the present criticism from that quarter mild.

The screams from his own party were a different matter. The House majority leader was questioning whether the destroyer had been ordered to initiate the conflict. In the Senate, a dozen of Greene’s former allies were lining up behind Senator Grasso of New York, who had already scheduled hearings into the matter.

Those hearings could be a forum for the White House to make its case, if the president could bring Grasso around. But short of adding the senator’s face to Mount Rushmore, that wasn’t likely to happen.

Greene decided he had to at least soften him up a little. So he put in a call. And then a second one.

Grasso called back after the third.

“The Gulf of Tonkin,” said Grasso when Greene picked up the phone.

Greene rolled his eyes, but reminded himself that he would not be baited. “Senator. How are you?”

“George, you’re as transparent as a cheap hooker’s robe,” said Grasso.

“I hope you’re not basing that on personal experience,” said Greene.

“Johnson did the same thing in Vietnam — created an incident so Congress would give him carte blanche over the war. The Gulf of Tonkin. That is not happening here,” said Grasso. “Negative.”

“I assure you, Senator, the destroyer was severely provoked and acted with model restraint. A ridiculous amount of restraint. And it was quite a distance from the Gulf of Tonkin.”

“Cut the Senator crap, George. You and I have been around the block. I know a power play when I see it. Crude as it is. The tail wagging the dog.”

“What will it take for you to see that China is the villain?” said Greene.

“I don’t care if China is the villain. Frankly, I don’t give a crap about them. Or Vietnam. Especially Vietnam.”

“Neither do I,” said Greene.

“I’m glad to hear you say that,” said Grasso. “Because a lot of people think this is psychological — some sort of payback for the people who protected you in prison.”

“Nobody protected me when I was a prisoner, Phil. They tortured me. There were no secret deals to keep me alive. It’s all been reported. But ask the men I was with if you don’t believe me.”

Grasso was silent for a moment, an unusual state for him. Greene hated to play the POW card, but he wouldn’t avoid it, either, especially when someone was spewing bullshit.

Part of him wouldn’t mind seeing the Vietnamese government — not the people — crushed as payback for what they’d done to him, and more important, to his friends. But as president, his personal feelings were beside the point. And they were, no matter what armchair politico-psychologists said in their