hours since, I’ve been called a liar. I’m not a liar. I’m a scientist. I know what I saw. The Chinese are murderers. They killed innocent people. It was despicable. It is despicable.”
There was collective gasp at the word
But how the hell could you be scientific when you’d seen what he’d seen? And when people called you a liar?
The photographers began taking pictures furiously. Josh looked at Grasso. He had a worried frown on his face.
“Order,” said Grasso, pounding the gavel.
“Mr. Chairman, I must demand that our witness apologize for his intemperate remarks,” said Senator Galveston, who despite his name represented Minnesota. “The Chinese are our allies and our business partners.”
“I don’t see how you can call them our allies,” said the senator on Grasso’s right.
Something between a discussion and pandemonium followed, as the senators argued back and forth about decorum and adjectives. Josh was shocked — not only did one of the senators want him to issue an apology, that seemed to be the majority view on the panel.
Josh knew that standing up to China was unpopular — the President himself had told him that — but he had thought that his speech and the images he’d presented at the UN had shown Americans, if not the world, what was going on.
Maybe it wasn’t fair to call the Chinese murderers. Certainly not every Chinese citizen was in the army, and maybe most wouldn’t support the war. Certainly, they wouldn’t be in favor of killing innocent civilians. But the Chinese government was another story. And their army had definitely done this.
“Mr. Chairman, I ask for a vote of censure on the witness,” said the senator from Minnesota.
“That’s preposterous!” said Grasso. He pounded his gavel.
More discussion. Josh glanced toward the door to the small room where he had left Jablonski. But the door was shut. Most likely the political operative was at the back of the room somewhere, but Josh didn’t want to give the reporters back there the satisfaction of his turning and looking at them.
Grasso finally gaveled his-committee back to order. There would be no demands on the witness, and no further statements from the witness. Instead, he would answer questions posed by the senators.
It was less a Q&A session than an excuse for pontificating. First up was the senator on Grasso’s right, who asked Josh if it was true that he had been near the Chinese border when he witnessed the slaughter, and then after getting a “yes,” launched into a denunciation of China as the enemy of the free world. The senators were on a time limit, as Grasso noted not once but twice before tapping his gavel lightly to cut off a man who was clearly his ally.
Next up was a member of the opposition party, who sat at the far end of the dais. He asked Josh what his qualifications were.
“I’m a biologist,” said Josh. “My specialty is studying the effects — ”
“You’re a biologist? I thought you were a climate scientist.”
“Yes. You see, there’s an overlap. In that I study the effects of rapid climate change on biological populations. Now, in Vietnam — ”
“So excuse me,” interrupted the senator, in a voice that implied no apology whatsoever. “You’re not a trained observer? You’re not a medical doctor. You know things about the weather.”
“Of course I’m not a medical doctor.”
“I see,” said the senator, his tone triumphant. “And this tape you brought back — ”
“Actually, it was a video stored on — ”
“The recording,” continued the senator, annoyed at being interrupted. “Who gave it to you?”
“No one gave it to me.”
“Your CIA handler didn’t give it to you?”
“I don’t have a handler.”
The senator frowned.
“Sixty seconds,” said Grasso. His tone made it clear that that was all the senator was getting. He was looking directly at his watch, and his gavel was poised to strike.
“Mr. Chairman, I want to submit that we cannot, and should not, take action based on ephemeral information from a possibly biased source, who may or may not have witnessed an isolated incident in an obscure — ”
“Time.” Grasso pounded the gavel.
But while the chairman could keep the speakers to their time limits, he had no control over what they said. As the session went on, it became clear that the majority on the committee was unwilling to take any action against China, and would certainly not authorize aid to Vietnam. One said that he would be in favor of aid if the UN passed a resolution condemning China. As China was able, as a member of the security council, to veto any resolution — and already had twice — this was tantamount to saying that he would never support aid, except that he phrased it in a way that made most people think he might.
Josh, thinking of the dead people he’d seen, of the buried hand of the corpse he’d dug up, of the girl, M?, whose parents had been killed and whose village had been wiped out, felt sick to his stomach.
At least none of the senators called him a liar. As the meeting went on, Josh tried to lengthen his answers so that they contained actual information. But the senators were on to that ploy, and soon began simply to ignore him, pontificating at will without bothering to ask a question or even glance in his direction. One or two made conciliatory gestures in his general direction — one even said he had been very brave to have escaped the war — but for the most part he was an accessory at best, and a potted plant at worst.
Finally, the ordeal was over. Grasso, clearly worn by the proceedings, thanked Josh for his time and “your unselfish devotion to our country.” With a loud clap on the gavel, some of the longest and certainly most frustrating hours of Josh’s life came to a close.
5
From that point, the world became a gray funnel. He couldn’t see or hear.
He could feel. And what he felt was his body rushing through the night, legs and arms pumping. He leapt onto the soldier’s chest. They fell to the ground.
Zeus let go of the explosive as he rolled to his right. He dropped the plunger. In the same motion he flailed at the soldier’s chin and neck, smashing them first with his forearm, then his fists. The gray funnel became a black ball, a hard knot of fury.
He didn’t breathe. His heart didn’t pump. He just punched.
Something grabbed his back. He spun, ready to strike his second assailant.
It was Christian. He just barely stopped himself from punching him.
“He’s down. He’s down.”
Zeus leapt to his feet, grabbed the explosive pack and the detonator mechanism up. Meanwhile, Christian grabbed the Chinese soldier’s legs and pulled him under the nearby APC.
“Take his pistol!” hissed Zeus, grabbing the soldier’s assault rifle.
“No other guards,” said Christian. “Think they heard?”
“Too late to worry about,” said Zeus. He pointed to the right. “We can crawl around that little mound to the truck.”
“I don’t think I can do it.”
“Come on, Win. You got this far.”
