Edge of War

Jing Yo turned, found the man, and kicked him in the chest, sending him against the window of the truck. He kicked him again in the face, then chopped his neck with the side of his hand.

The man’s neck snapped.

The other man had fallen to the ground under the force of Jing Yo’s initial blow. Jing Yo jumped on top of him, landing on his back. He kicked him over, then with his heel crushed the man’s esophagus, in effect strangling him.

The truck lurched forward. Jing Yo threw himself into the bed. Scrambling to his knees, he grabbed one of the AK-47s as the driver screeched around the corner. Jing Yo put the gun to the rear window and pulled the trigger.

The truck began to veer as the driver fell forward against the steering wheel, killed by Jing Yo’s shot. With the dead man’s foot still hard against the gas pedal, the truck veered sideways, then rushed off the pavement into the front yard of a small house.

Jing Yo put his left hand on the cab roof and pushed off, managing to jump off the opposite side as the truck flipped and crashed into the house. He rolled on the ground, his senses momentarily gone.

There was silence.

A woman screamed. A child began to cry.

Jing Yo jumped to his feet and began to run.

* * *

By the time Jing Yo got to central Hanoi, it was nearly eight o’clock, and the city was wide awake. He’d had to duck only a single checkpoint, but his experience with the dogs and the pickup truck made him wary. He’d gotten rid of his boots, and while tempted to keep the AK-47 for protection, he’d ditched it as well. He looked like a Vietnamese student, in Western blue jeans, with cheap athletic shoes and a bulky sweatshirt to hide his pistol. His backpack bore the insignia of a Vietnamese company.

It had been more than a year since Jing Yo had been in Hanoi. That visit had in no way prepared him for the city he saw now. Black smoke hung over the northern half, thickest above the airport and the area where the government and army had their official buildings. Jing Yo made his way to the banks of the Red River, walking in the direction of Phu Tan Port. Both the Chuong Dong Bridge and the Long Bien Bridge farther north had been destroyed. Burned-out shells of cars littered the roads near the water. Several small freighters had either been bombed or run aground, perhaps out of panic. The stern of the nearest vessel, a gasoline tanker blackened by the smoke of a fire, stood high above the water, its screw and rudder exposed like the genitals of an old, naked man.

Jing Yo walked northward, his stoic expression mirrored in the faces of the people he passed. They, too, were on a mission. A woman was taking dried sweet potatoes home from the market, dinner for a week. A man in a clean suit strode through the dusty street toward work, his manner daring the grit to settle on him.

Soldiers were posted at several of the intersections, but they took little notice of the clusters of people walking past. Jing Yo turned onto Hang Gai, one of the main roads north of the Thap Rua or Turtle Tower, the famous temple in the middle of Sword Lake in the center part of the city. There was a gaping hole in the row of buildings on the first street he turned down. He knew the area from his last stay, but couldn’t place the building that had been there.

He walked slowly, trying to prod his memory. Whatever had been there was now a hole filled with debris. The house behind it leaned over, as if peeking downward. Stray rocks and bricks were strewn at the sides. A small pile lined the gutter on the far side.

The theater. It had been a theater.

The memory came full force. He saw himself sitting in the audience, enchanted by the show, completely taken by the strange dance onstage.

Jing Yo pushed the memory away. It was an indulgence he couldn’t afford.

He continued down the block, then turned into a street of old and cramped buildings.

A strong odor hung in the air. Burnt metal and rotting flesh.

Jing Yo found the building and knocked on the door.

There was no answer. He knocked again. This time there was a rustle. Someone came to the door.

“Who?” asked a voice, so softly he could barely hear.

“Jing Yo.”

The door opened. A woman about Jing Yo’s age, wearing a Western-style dress, her hair undone down her back, stood gaping.

“Jing Yo?”

“It has been a long time,” he told her as she collapsed into his arms.

7

Hanoi

Josh studied his face in the mirror. The razor the SEAL had given him had removed about three-fourths of his week-old beard, leaving an uneven stubble covering his face.

There wasn’t enough shaving cream for a second try. He lathered up the soap as best he could, and began scraping gently. Bits of hair poked up from the corners of his mouth like pimples erupting on a teenager’s face.

His forehead was red, his nose blistered. His right eye drooped down, ringed by a deep, puffy bruise. He didn’t remember how he’d gotten it; it was simply one of the assorted minor injuries he’d suffered.

Better this than dead, he thought. Much better.

“Hey, kid, how’s it coming?” said Little Joe from the hallway. Little Joe — his full name was Ensign Riccardo Joseph Crabtree — had replaced Squeaky on guard duty while Josh slept.

“I’m getting there,” said Josh.

“You shaving?”

“Yeah.”

“Mind if I use the facilities? My stomach’s gonna explode.”

“Yeah, yeah, come on in,” said Josh.

There was only one commode in the washroom, open to the rest of the room. Josh threw water on his face and started to clear out to give the SEAL some privacy.

“Where you goin’?” said Little Joe.

“I’m not watching.”

Little Joe had a chortling laugh, the sort of sound a pig might make while grinding food.

“I don’t blame you. Take this.” He handed Josh his MP-5. “Don’t shoot yourself. I’ll be out in a second.”

Josh took the submachine gun and went out into the hall.

Josh had learned to hunt and handle guns as a young boy, but the submachine was a different sort of weapon. A rifle, a shotgun, even a pistol — all were tools for a certain kind of work, taking food. They were little different from the tractor his uncle used to plow the fields on their farm. You respected your rifle because it was a powerful tool, one that could easily get you into trouble if used improperly.

The submachine gun was a tool, too, but its purpose had nothing to do with food. You killed with it. Not food, but other people.

Kill or be killed. It wasn’t a theoretical or philosophical construct, not a scientific theory or hypothesis. Josh understood it completely, in his gut as well as his head — he’d just lived it. He’d witnessed the results of what happened when you didn’t or couldn’t defend yourself. And he’d managed to survive only at the expense of others.

And yet, after all that, there was something about the idea of killing another human being that weighed greatly on him.

As a scientist, he believed his mission was to help people. He studied the weather and its effect on biomes because he wanted to help humans deal with it. What other reason was there? Idle curiosity?

“You need purpose in your work,” a professor had told him in college. It was back in his junior year, his Philosophy of Science class. Professor Van Garten. Considering that it was a science class, and that Van Garten was a biologist, the lectures veered very close to religion. “If science’s discoveries are not in service of mankind, what