Shock of War

“It is.”

“Well, then, there is no problem,” said the premier, somewhat more relaxed. “The ships will beat the destroyer to the port, and that will be the end of it.”

“And if something delays them or the operation?”

Cho Lai ground his back teeth together. Now he was the one being forced to act as a coward. But he must take the long view. He must take the long view.

“Make sure that it doesn’t,” he said darkly. “Take Hai Phong. And make sure those ships return with rice.”

Lo Gong bowed his head.

22

In the air over northern Vietnam

Zeus lurched against his restraints as Thieu threw the Albatros toward the earth, trying desperately to lose the missiles on their tail. Buzzers and bleeps and voices warned of their impending doom. Zeus felt as if his stomach and lungs were being torn into several pieces inside his body. Gravity crunched against his chest, and his face mask felt as if it were edged with a steel knife, cutting deeply into his face.

The Albatros jerked right, heading straight for a huge rock outcropping. Then it spurt back left. Something popped behind Zeus. He thought they’d been hit. But as the plane hurtled ahead, he realized Thieu had launched decoys — ”tinsel,” or chaff, the pilots called it, pieces of metal shards that confused radar.

The Albatros shot straight up, then turned upside down. Zeus caught a red flash in the corner of his eye — one of the missiles that had been chasing them, blowing up harmlessly a mile or more away, suck-ered by the decoy.

The other missile mysteriously vanished, just gave up as its radar lost contact. The cockpit went silent.

But not for long.

“Bandit, ten o’clock!” said Thieu. “Hang on, Major!”

If air combat had ever held any fascination for Zeus, it was lost in the sharp plunge the Albatros took as it knifed away from its attacker. Zeus saw a yellowish triangle moving through the valley at his left. It was the Chinese aircraft — a Jian-10B multirole aircraft, a plane Zeus knew only from the dry specs in the Red Dragon war game simulator he had used back in the States. The aircraft bore a striking resemblance to the Israeli Lavi, not exactly a coincidence or accident, as the Israelis had helped the Chinese develop the plane.

Having already fired its radar-guided missiles, the Chinese plane had to maneuver into position to use its heat-seeking missiles. In practical terms, this meant it had to get behind the Albatros, something that Thieu aimed to prevent, jinking back and forth sharply and staying low to the ground.

“Look for his wing mate!” said Thieu over the plane’s interphone. “He should have a wing mate. He is not on my radar.”

Zeus searched the sky for a second airplane. He couldn’t see any aircraft, not even the one that had attacked them.

The Albatros pushed hard to the right, seemingly bending itself in half. Zeus saw fire on his left as they bounced back around

Decoy flares, launched by Thieu.

There was a low rumble. The plane bucked up and down. The engine seemed to stutter behind him, as if choking. They slid down on their left wing. Then Zeus felt a shake from the center line of the aircraft — the cannon strapped to the forward underside began firing.

More flares filled the air, this time directly from the Chinese plane, its pilot apparently fearing the Albatros had a missile similar to its own.

And then it was gone.

The whine of the Albatros’s engine dropped a dozen decibels. The plane slowed and banked eastward. Zeus thought for a moment that they had been hit again, or had run out of fuel. But Thieu was only recognizing that the fight was over. The Chinese pilot had laid on his afterburner and was rocketing away. The Albatros lacked the speed to catch up, and was low on fuel besides.

“We gave him a good fight!” yelled Thieu.

“Oh yeah.”

“What do you think of that, Major? We have chased off a bigger plane. Do you think we damaged him?”

“I’m sure of it,” said Zeus.

23

Suburban Virginia

As an institution, the CIA had almost unlimited resources for finding someone.

As an individual, a CIA officer was surprisingly limited. He — or in this case, she — couldn’t simply type in a name into a computer bank and receive reams of information on the person, even if the information was stored in the agency’s computers. There were protocols and safeguards and procedures that had to be followed.

Assuming they were followed.

Within a few minutes of deciding that she really, really did want to find out, Mara knew exactly where Josh was headed. The problem was deciding what to do about it.

What she wanted to do was hop on a plane and fly out to the cousin’s farm. She could get there before he did; he was driving, which meant it would take probably another half day if not a full day.

But doing that would be messy. Doing that meant she had to tell him that she was in love with him.

And if she told him, then what happened? Obviously he wasn’t in love with her, because he wouldn’t have left the way he did.

He had kissed her. But it was just a kiss, a good-to-be-alive kiss, nothing more.

A nothing kiss, in the end.

She’d go there, and be rejected; he’d look down at the ground and stammer. What the hell was the sense of that?

How the hell could she have let herself fall in love with him? She was such a goddamn girl.

Be a woman, Mara.

Oh, but the woman in her wanted him as well. The woman in her — the woman who knew that she was no great beauty, but that she was, and could be, a good companion, a good lover, someone who would hold a man and make him whole — the woman pined for him as well.

In the end, she decided to call the marshal.

“Terrence, this is Mara Duncan,” she said when he answered the phone. “Where the hell are you guys?”

“Ms. Duncan.” The marshal’s Texas accent blossomed. “We’re in a car. He wanted to go back to his family place. I’m watchin’ him. You don’t have to worry.”

“I understand that. Let me talk to Josh.”

“He’s kinda sleeping right now. In the backseat.”

“Terrence, are you lying to me?”

“No,” he said. There was enough surprise in his voice for her to believe him.

“I’m supposed to be watching him,” she said. It was lame, but it was all she could manage.

“I have it covered. He hated that hearing,” added the marshal. “That guy Jablonski keeps calling. Josh doesn’t want to talk to him.”

“Tell him he didn’t do as badly as he thinks.” Mara wanted to keep talking; maybe Josh would wake up and