Shock of War

take the phone. “He gets… Josh gets too down on himself. You have to tell him that things are going okay. Not great, but okay. He just loses perspective. We’ve been through a lot.”

“Hey, you want me to wake him up or something?”

She did. She definitely did.

“No,” said Mara. “It’s all right. You take care of him. Have him call me. I’m… I have some things I have to do. But you have him call me. You have my number, right?”

“It’s right here on the phone.”

“Okay. Have him call me.”

“Got it.”

She hung up, wishing she hadn’t repeated her plea to have him call.

24

Hanoi

After they landed on the patched tarmac of Hanoi Airport, Zeus and Thieu examined the fighter. A good portion of the tail had been eaten away by ground fire and the exploding head of one of the missiles that had just missed them.

Thieu gestured at the damaged aircraft with a laugh, and shouted something at Zeus. A jet landing nearby made it impossible to hear, but Zeus guessed that it was some sort of boast along the lines of, Is that the best they can do?

“Do you think we shot the other plane down?” he added, his voice a little stronger as the other plane’s roar subsided.

Zeus had seen it fly off and knew they hadn’t come close to hitting it, let alone shooting it down. Yet somehow it didn’t feel right to let him down.

“It’s a very good chance,” Zeus told him.

Thieu patted him on the back.

* * *

An hour later; Zeus waited outside an office at the U.S. embassy to talk to General Perry. He was beyond exhausted. The injuries he’d received in his foray behind the lines, though minor, screamed at him. Even the spots on his chest where the restraints had pressed against him during the flight hurt.

He thought of Anna. She’d be on shift now. He wanted to take her in his arms and fall into her bed, sink past the war, sink past everything for a week, a month, forever.

God, she was beautiful. He could feel her lips on his….

“You sleeping, Major?”

Zeus jumped to his feet. A woman in her early thirties was standing a few feet from his chair in the hallway, suppressing a smile.

Barely.

“I’m s-sorry,” stuttered Zeus. “I haven’t gotten much rest lately.”

“Join the club.”

If she was tired, it didn’t show in her face. She wore a long white sweater over black pants, very basic, yet flattering. Anna was prettier, but the woman in front of him was no slouch.

“I’m Juliet Greig,” she said, holding out her hand. “Acting Consul General. We haven’t met.”

“No. I’m sorry.”

“You’re here to see General Perry?” she asked.

“Yes, ma’am.”

She smiled indulgently at the word ma’am.

“He’s in with the ambassador and would like you to address them both. They’re downstairs. If you’ll follow me.”

She led Zeus to the secure area of the embassy, where a suite of rooms were protected from electronic eavesdropping. Greig stopped in front of a thick door. She drew a magnetic card from her pocket and ran it through a reader, then pressed her thumb against a flat plate of glass beneath the card slot.

The lock snapped open. Greig and Zeus entered a small, narrow vestibule covered in what looked like cork. There was a second door, this one operated by a numerical keypad.

“Please don’t peek,” said Greig over her shoulder.

Zeus stepped back.

“It was a joke,” she said as the door unlocked. “Peeking wouldn’t help you — the combination changes every hour.”

She pushed open the door, then stood to the side as Zeus entered. He brushed against her arm ever so gently, catching a whiff of her perfume.

It made him think of Anna.

General Perry and Ambassador Behrens were on phones at the far end of the table that dominated the room. Behind them were a pair of boxes that looked as if they were part of a very upscale home entertainment system. Blue lights flickered on both. A single laptop sat on the table.

Perry gestured to Zeus, indicating he should sit down on one of the chairs scattered nearby. They were folding chairs, the sort you would see in a church basement.

“Yes, sir, Mr. President,” continued Perry. “I understand.”

He frowned, and glanced at the ambassador.

“We will,” she said, and hung up.

“How was your flight, Major?” said Perry, placing the phone on the receiver.

“It was… interesting,” said Zeus. “We, uh… we got fired on a couple of times.”

“No damage?”

“Plane got banged up, but we got home. The Chinese are moving past Tien Yen,” he added. “The Vietnamese were overrun farther north. Part of the armored brigade hasn’t even reached the city yet.”

“Are they going to launch a counterattack there?” asked Perry.

“It didn’t look like they were organized at all. Frankly, hitting the city now would be a waste of time. They’d have to get farther north if they wanted to cut off the Chinese supply lines.”

“Or go farther south if they want to confront the spearhead,” said Perry.

“Could you show me where we’re talking about on the map?” asked Behrens. She touched a few keys on the laptop and pushed it over toward Zeus.

Zeus showed her.

“There’s vacuum north of Lang Son,” he told Perry. “You could attack north and get pretty far.”

“The Vietnamese can’t even defend their own soil,” said Perry, with some disgust.

The general pulled the laptop closer to him. Zeus noticed his arm brush against Behrens’s; he wondered if they were lovers.

Certainly not. They pulled their arms away almost instantly.

He was seeing sex in everything because of Anna.

“There’s something else,” Zeus said. “The Yen Tu Mountains are a no-fly zone. Why do you think that is?”

“What do you mean?” asked Perry.

“We couldn’t fly over the area,” said Zeus. “We detoured around it the whole flight. I definitely got the impression that I wasn’t supposed to see something there.”

“Show me,” said Perry.

Zeus pointed out the area over the mountains. It was a large swatch east of Hanoi.

“Could that be where the government is going to evacuate to?” the general asked Behrens.

“I doubt it. Their bunkers are all in Hanoi and to the south, where the military headquarters are.”

“Well, something’s there,” said Zeus. “Can I get a look at the satellite data?”

“Absolutely,” said Perry, rising. “They’re in the other room. Come with me.”