Edge of War

that someone emerged from the superstructure aft of the bridge and turned in their direction, spotting them.

The timing was nearly perfect.

“Fire!” yelled Zeus. “Board them!”

The grenade hit the antenna mount and exploded. A second grenade struck the forward gun mount, shattering the side armor, killing the gunner stationed there and destroying the gun mechanism as well.

The boat crashed into the side of the Chinese patrol craft. Zeus stumbled to his knees as he leapt across, his balance upset by the rocking waves. He got up, fixed his grip on his AK-47, then glanced to his right to make sure the rear gunner’s station was still unmanned. With that clear, he left it for Solt to take the gun as planned and started forward.

The machine gun on the starboard side had already been secured by one of the Vietnamese marines, who was using it to pepper the Chinese boarding party. Zeus ran past to the ladder, thinking he was trailing the main boarding party. But instead he ran into three Chinese sailors. Two bursts from his AK-47 took them down. Then something pushed him to the deck, hard — the air shock from an explosion.

He rolled up in time to see the Chinese captain and his helmsman running past him, trying to escape. Zeus cut both of them down, his bullets hitting them in the legs and dropping them like the teeth of a chainsaw gnawing saplings in the woods.

Inside the bridge, he went to the control board and made sure the ship’s engines were still on idle. Then he went back out to the deck, passing the marine who’d been assigned to secure the bridge.

“Keep us close,” said Zeus.

Down on deck, the marines were pulling out bodies from the cabins directly below the bridge. Zeus looked over at Christian’s fishing boat. The marines there had taken out their weapons. Two Chinese sailors were on the deck near the wheelhouse, their hands high.

“Christian? Win? You all right?” yelled Zeus.

Christian and Quach came out of the wheelhouse. Zeus went over to help them aboard.

“You all right?” Zeus asked.

“I’m good, I’m good,” said Christian, who looked more than a little shaken up.

“Very risky thing,” said Quach. “But thank you.”

“It looked like things were getting out of control over here,” Zeus told him. “What happened?”

“They found one of the bags,” said Christian. “Quach told them we’d fished it from the water. I don’t think they were buying it.”

“Did they radio that in?”

“I don’t know.”

Quach went up to the bridge to check on the radio. Solt was already there. With the radio out, they couldn’t be certain that the Chinese hadn’t broadcast for help; they hadn’t heard anything on their radios, but there was always a chance they had missed it.

Only one marine had been injured in the takeover; he’d fallen and broken his arm. Zeus took charge of immobilizing it with a splint and fashioning a sling. When he finished, he came out on deck just in time to see Quach take a pistol and hold it to the head of the one of the two Chinese prisoners. Before Zeus could say anything, both men were dead.

“Why the hell did you do that?” yelled Christian, clambering up from the fishing boat where he’d gone for his gear. “Those men were prisoners.”

“They were liabilities,” said Quach calmly. “We can’t keep them. And we can’t take them back to Vietnam. They’d do the same to us.”

“Damn,” said Christian.

He looked at Zeus. The truth was, Quach was right, as unpleasant as that was to face.

“Let’s get everything together,” said Zeus. “We have a long way to go.”

20

New York City

Josh stood at the edge of the airstrip, the helicopter poised in midair behind him. His AK-47 was out of bullets. Kerfer and the other SEALs were in the grass somewhere, down.

He was all alone, surrounded by Chinese soldiers. He kept firing at them, but they didn’t die. They were like zombies, standing in the field, on the runway. The wash of the helicopter’s blades swirled dust around him. He turned, just in time to see the chopper taking off.

Then he woke.

It was five past five.

Josh jumped out of bed and took a shower, finishing just as the water began to turn off. There was a small coffeemaker with a package of pre-measured grounds on the bathroom counter. He poured in a cup of water and turned it on.

The coffee surged through the machine while he got dressed. The first sip was terrible; the second, worse. He left the room, determined to find something better.

Broome was out in the hall, sitting on a chair and leaning against the wall.

“You’re back,” Josh told him.

“Like a bad penny,” said the marshal. “So whatcha doin’?”

“I need some real coffee.”

“Me, too. Hey — mind if I use the john? I gotta pee bad.”

Josh let him in. At least he didn’t smell like Mexican food this morning.

They found a coffee place down the block. Broome groused about the high prices — eight dollars for a medium cup of coffee. Five years before, it had been two, and even that was considered outrageous.

“No wonder there’s so many people in the streets,” he said as they walked back to the hotel. “Coffee bankrupted them. Look at this — they’re two deep over there. And you need guards all over the place. And New York ain’t even that bad,” continued the marshal. “You should see Atlanta. L.A. L.A. is a pit. It was never that good to begin with.”

“You think there’s going to be a war?” Josh asked.

“How’s that?”

“With China going into Vietnam?”

“Nah. They’re just kicking their butts around for a bit. That’s not a real war.”

“You don’t think we’ll be involved?”

“Nah. Besides,” added Broome, “who the hell cares about China and Vietnam? Let them do what they want. It don’t affect us.”

“Yeah,” said Josh.

* * *

Josh found breakfast with Jablonski nearly unbearable. The food itself, served in the back room of a fancy restaurant about a block from the hotel, was excellent. But the work was tedious. The speechwriter had him go over the same points several times, each time telling him to say less and less. Josh resisted, but only to a point. He was so tired of hearing himself that he wanted to cut it short as well.

“So what’s the president going to do with this?” Josh asked finally.

“He wants a resolution condemning China.”

“And then what? Do we intervene?”

“Maybe,” said Jablonski cautiously. He glanced at Mara, who’d been sitting silently through the entire session. “What do you think about that, Josh?”

“I don’t know.”

“The Chinese want to take over Asia, Josh,” said Mara. She leaned across the table. “You’ve seen how ruthless they are.”

“I don’t know if they want to take over all Asia.”

She shook her head. “They do.”