Edge of War

“All night Friendly’s,” said Lam, beaming. You’d never know he had a sweet tooth to look at him; he couldn’t weigh more than a hundred pounds.

“M? really should be getting to bed,” said the nurse.

Josh felt pangs of jealousy as the translator, the nurse, and Cole talked with M?. It was silly. He couldn’t take care of her.

Actually, he had taken care of her. In the jungle. But here there were professionals and people with kids. He wasn’t exactly M?’s dad.

M? looked up at Josh as Lam explained that she was going to go with them to Mr. Cole’s. He would stay the night on a couch to help translate.

“I’m — I–I’m going to stay in a hotel, M?,” said Josh. “All right?”

Mara bent down and started talking to M? in Vietnamese. When she was done, M? turned to Josh and hugged him. He reached down and grabbed her.

Tears welled in his eyes.

“I’ll see you soon,” he said.

He looked away as she left.

“I told her that we’ll see her,” said Mara. “And that there are other kids.”

Josh nodded.

* * *

“We want to find the site, but keep it quiet,” Greene whispered to Frost as they walked toward the Cabinet Room. “Put it under surveillance. When word leaks out, dollars to doughnuts the Chinese will try and dig up the bodies. We’ll have it on video.”

“Dollars to doughnuts?” said Frost.

“That’s my stomach talking.” Greene laughed. “Let’s get Josh and Mara up to New York, get them ready for Friday. Have them leave tonight.”

“What about the girl?”

“She can come up with me.”

“You think she should testify?”

“Of course. Why not?”

“We have to vet her first.”

“What do you mean vet? The scientist found her in the jungle, right?”

“We have to hear what her story is. We just heard what Mara said.”

“That’s good enough for me.”

“George…”

“Have your man Lambert talk to her and hear her story. He has until Friday.”

“You really think it’s a good idea? We have the scientist.”

“Christ, Peter. All these years and you still don’t know crap about what sells in the media, do you?”

8

Hanoi

As a military strategist, Major Win Christian was plodding and predictable, exactly the sort of opponent Zeus would love to meet on the battlefield. In fact, the only time Zeus ran into trouble when facing him in the Red Dragon war games was when he failed to account properly for Christian’s stupidity. Faced with what looked like an idiotic development, Zeus had trouble believing his opponent wasn’t setting him up for some brilliantly clever and devious counterplay. But that was never the case.

As an engineer, however, Christian had real talent. Charged with helping the Vietnamese navy and air force — such as they were — come up with fake submarines and aircraft, he was creative and efficient. His hastily arranged collections of sheet metal, wood, and bamboo at Hai Phong not only gave Vietnam a dozen submarines overnight, but showed stockpiles of what looked like long-range torpedoes, along with the external modifications that allowed the weapons to be strapped to launchers on the hull. He also added the capacity to carry an unspecified but suitably nasty-looking antiship missile to a pair of otherwise inoperable Hormone helicopters.

“I call it the Zeus Murphy weapon,” said Christian proudly. “A lethal dose of bullshit in every breath.”

“Har-har,” said Zeus, stooping over the coffee table in General Perry’s hotel suite to examine the photo.

The weapon and the subs looked so real that even trained satellite analysts couldn’t tell that they were fake — as the intelligence alert posted by the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office an hour earlier attested.

“Vietnam Moving Antiship Weapons onto Helicopters” was the title of the brief but credulous report.

“I wonder if the CIA would be able to leak this intelligence to the Chinese,” said General Perry.

“The Chinese are already seeing this on their satellites,” said Christian. “There’s no need to leak it.”

“If they think that we think this is happening, it adds more credibility,” Perry added.

“I may be able to try something,” said Zeus. He remembered that Mara had warned him not to deal with the CIA station at the embassy; while she hadn’t been explicit, it was obvious from her hints that there was some sort of mole there, working for either the Chinese or the Vietnamese. In any event, it would be an easy matter to leave this for them in hopes of its getting back to Beijing.

“Do you have time?” asked Perry.

“I don’t leave for a couple of hours,” said Zeus. “Now that I know where Hai Phong is, it shouldn’t be a problem.”

The driver assigned to him earlier in the day had gotten lost. Vietnam was a small country, but it turned out that many of its residents, even soldiers, had never visited anywhere very far from the place they had grown up.

Perry turned to Christian. “Major, would you excuse us for a moment?”

Christian nodded.

“Drink?” Perry asked, going to the credenza at the side of the suite room.

“Sure.” Zeus jumped to his feet.

Perry was short and very thin; Zeus guessed he was no taller than five six, and if he weighed 130 it was only with his winter uniform on. But Perry had two Silver Stars and three Bronze Stars with the V device — V as in Valor, an award given only if its recipient had been under fire. He’d more than proven his mettle.

Until this assignment, Zeus had had only brief contacts with the general during war games, and thought he was very standoffish and cold. His opinion had changed considerably in the past few days, however; the general had proven not only warmer, but much more clever and unorthodox than Zeus had suspected.

“I would offer you your choice,” said Perry, picking up a bottle, “but it will all come down to the same thing — Johnnie Walker Black Label, or Johnnie Walker Black Label?”

“I’ll take the Black Label.”

“Neat?”

Since there was no ice, neat would have to do. Perry poured two fingers’ worth into the clear glass and handed it over. Then he poured three fingers’ worth for himself.

Rank had its privileges.

“After the war, an import-export business focusing on liquor,” said Perry, holding up his glass.

“I’m not really sure international trade is my thing,” said Zeus.

“I meant for me.”

Perry smiled and took a slug of the Scotch. Zeus took a small sip.

“You,” said Perry, “I expect will stay in the Army, go on to become a general, and eventually chief of staff. Assuming you don’t get killed on this mission.”

“I’m not planning to, General.”

“None of us do.” Perry took another sip of Scotch. This time he savored the whiskey.

“The submarine base near Sanya on Hainan,” said Perry. “We’re reasonably sure the submarines aren’t there?”