“Commander, with due respect, we’re moving as fast as we can,” said Li.
“Good,” said Silas. “Find me a few knots more. Let’s get to those merchant ships before the storm hits.”
14
Vast swaths of the capital had been struck over the past two days as part of this campaign. The accuracy of the bombs and missiles was impressive — for the most part, they had avoided the area of west Hanoi where foreigners had their embassies and hotels like the one where Zeus stayed were located. And where they hit, the damage was generally contained to the actual target, as Zeus had seen leaving his building.
The effect of this was to make the war seem almost bizarre. One could go several blocks with everything looking normal, then suddenly come upon a street where half the buildings were reduced to rubble. After the first raids, the authorities immediately mobilized and organized relief parties to clear the debris and restore some sense of order. But now the workers, who were mostly volunteers, were tired. Their work dragged, and the continued onslaught was wearing the city down.
A few bombs, apparently strays, had struck the Old City in the center of Hanoi during the day. Fires continued to burn there, smoke wafting over the city. The smell in the air changed from that of an electrical fire to something sweeter, an incenselike aroma of charred, ancient wood.
The city’s businesses had largely shut down, with their workers recruited for the country’s home guard, or organized into volunteer brigades for various chores. The regular army soldiers who had been manning checkpoints just a few days before had been moved on to more important tasks. Many of their posts were now abandoned, though sandbags and barrels they left behind still slowed traffic. Others were manned by men who had served in the army earlier, primarily during the early stages of the war with America. They were gray, frail figures, more ghostlike than soldierly, dressed in ragtag combinations of military and civilian clothing. Still, motorists obeyed them, stopping and explaining their business, often asking for directions around the streets that had been barricaded due to the strikes, and exchanging information and rumors about the war.
Rumors were a great currency. Information about a pending attack, no matter how far-fetched, could get a citizen very far, opening the doors of shuttered shops and even obtaining extreme discounts in price for necessities.
Hoan Kiem Lake, the romantic soul of Hanoi just east of the now devastated Citadel, was a rallying point for the brigades that were organizing citizen volunteers for the defense. This was at least partly for symbolic reasons — the lake commemorated a successful uprising of the Vietnamese against the Chinese in the fifteenth century, when General Le Loi received a divine sword from a golden turtle there and used it to rout the Ming Dynasty rulers from the country. The park around the lake was overwhelmed by the outpouring of citizenry. Crowds overflowed into the nearby streets, completely choking off traffic.
The necessary detours sent Zeus and Christian wending their way through much of the rest of Hanoi as they headed toward the Vietnamese command bunkers south of the city. Most of the streets were deserted, the residents either enrolled as volunteers or hunkering down in basements and other places thought to be safe. In a few cases, they were still working — a barbershop overflowed with customers, two men shared a single cup of tea at a table in front of a cafe.
At the start of the conflict, the Vietnamese military command had moved its operations to a set of bunkers south of Hanoi. The bunkers had escaped the opening rounds of the Chinese attack, but now were a primary target. They were very deep underground; Zeus believed they could only be taken out with American-style bunker busters, which the Chinese were not believed to have.
The Chinese had nonetheless made a considerable effort to destroy them. The radio towers that marked the northern fringe of the compound area had been destroyed in one of the first attacks. The small airstrip at the western end of the reserve area had been bombed until it looked like the far side of the moon.
The Vietnamese had moved some antiaircraft guns and missiles into the area before Zeus and Christian left on their mission to Hainan. All were now twisted wrecks, mangled metal arms and flattened torsos dotting the distance. The security fences tilted and swooned in different directions, and the road leading into the complex was so cratered that a new path had been marked with cones. Only the deepest potholes had been filled in; the jeep bounced back and forth as the driver did his best to navigate through the shallowest ones.
The bunker entrances were contained in low-rising buildings hugging the field. The nearest one to the road had been hit by a succession of bombs. It had not been totally destroyed, but the Vietnamese had opted not to use it until their engineers could examine the overhead concrete that covered the stairs to the doorways. Following a set of gray cones, the driver took Zeus and Christian around to the next one. It had survived a near miss that had gouged about ten feet of earth away from its northern end.
There were no guards aboveground. Zeus, who’d been in the bunkers several times now, went down the stairs to the ramp that led to the first security area. He nodded at the soldiers who came to meet him, holding out his arms so they could perform the mandatory weapons checks. He and Christian were wearing civilian clothes, as they had for most of their stay here; the presence of American soldiers in Hanoi, even as advisers, was still top secret.
“You notice there are fewer sentries,” said Christian as they were cleared to enter a second hallway.
“Need them to fight the war,” answered Zeus.
“Or they got killed in one of the attacks.”
“Or that.”
The floor they were on had been used for a meeting when the Americans had first arrived. But the actual Vietnamese command offices were lower, and the Chinese attacks had convinced the Vietnamese to close off these conference rooms. There were no elevators down to the lower level — in fact, there were no elevators in the complex at all. Zeus and Christian walked down the long hallway to a wide green door. Though the soldier here had seen the man at the other end check them, he nonetheless looked at the IDs they had been issued before stepping aside.
The door led to a stairway lit by battery-powered red lights. After descending two flights, the stairwell stopped at a steel door. They went through that door and descended another set of steps, repeating the process two more times. The offset shafts were designed to make it difficult for an enemy to send a missile down to the command area.
The door to the last stairwell opened on to a ramp similar to the one they had started on. The walls and ceiling were made of concrete, polished smooth. The floor was covered with a thin industrial carpet. The lighting fixtures embedded in the ceiling were low-powered LEDs, and shaded the corridor with a dim yellow light.
The Chinese attacks had damaged one of the venting units, and the Vietnamese had shuttered it to make repairs. This made the air even staler than it had been, to the point that Zeus felt his lungs were being pressed in his chest.
A young woman in civilian clothes met them a short distance down the hall.
“Major Christian?” she said.
Christian nodded.
“I’m Major Murphy,” said Zeus.
The young woman flushed, and bent her head.
“We are most grateful for your brave gallantry,” she said softly. Her English pronunciation was impeccable. “You will please come with me.”
They followed her past a few closed doors to a small conference room. General Perry was hunkered over
