Shock of War

34

The Gulf of Tonkin

The sea crashed heavily over the bow, spraying clear to the bridge. This was nothing, just the spray ahead of the storm. The typhoon itself was still several miles behind the McLane.

It was coming. The darkness seemed to focus its intensity. The deck hurled upward and down, again and again, the hard hand of Poseidon slamming against the waves.

“Captain, we’re still five miles from the nearest merchant ship,” said Lt. Commander Li. “But the storm — we can’t keep moving this way much longer.”

“We have to get between them and the port,” said Silas.

“Captain, even the Chinese warships have moved off. We have to head into the storm.”

“We can take hundred-knot winds,” said Silas. He meant they could take a wind that strong at the side without rolling over.

“These winds are one-twenty, one-thirty!” The howling outside the bridge was so loud Li had to shout to make herself heard.

“We’re going to do it,” said Silas calmly. As if to mock him, a heavy gust bit at the ship, pushing her over a good ten degrees. “Helm! More power.”

“She’s to the limit now, Captain.”

“Pour it on!” insisted Silas. He looked at Li. He knew what she was thinking. “I know the ship, Dorothy. We’re not capsizing. We’re going to accomplish our mission.”

She grit her teeth, then nodded.

“Steady!” yelled Silas as the vessel lurched again. “Steady!”

35

Quang Ninh Province

Zeus pushed himself into the wet grass, waiting for the first tank to come around the bend. The rain had picked up to the point where it interfered with his night glasses.

Good. The tanks’ infrared sights would be useless as well.

He thought of Anna, remembered her body pressing against his.

The first Chinese tank came around the turn, gun pointed toward the hill where Zeus was lying. In the dark, it looked exactly like an M1A1, the low silhouette grinding through the night.

“Come on, baby,” muttered Zeus.

A second tank came around the bend, about ten yards behind the first. A third followed almost on its bumper, with a fourth right behind that.

Zeus turned toward the bridge. Would the engineers be patient enough to let the first tank pass? If they were, they could get three in one shot.

Perry’s warning and orders came back to him. But there wasn’t time to bug out. The Chinese had come down too quickly. It wasn’t his fault.

The first tank rumbled onto the bridge. It paused for a moment, then burst across toward the pickup truck on the far side. The second tank moved onto the bridge, then the third and fourth.

Blow it now, thought Zeus. But nothing happened.

36

The Gulf of Tonkin

The wind and water worked together, sliding a long hand beneath the stern of the McLane and then dashing her into the ocean like a fly caught in a stabber. The vessel rolled forty-five degrees, staying there for a long moment.

Silas realized he had erred, gravely. He had thought he could best not simply the Chinese but nature. It was a foolish, fatal bit of egotism, the hubris of an idiot — and too late to be retrieved.

The vessel smacked back upright. He had two men on the helm now, and another to help if either needed relief, but they were nothing against the storm. The McLane, for all her dash and technology, was not the equal of God. Nor was she intended to be.

A new wave sent him to the deck. The pit of his stomach opened. He felt nauseous — something he hadn’t felt even as a freshly minted ensign. He began to get sick; in an instant, vomit spewed from his mouth, over his shirt.

It was the ultimate humiliation for a captain. He cowered on the deck, humbled.

Now, he told himself, now that you are stripped of all your dignity, now that you stand before your crew exposed as a fool — now you must decide what you will do.

Will you stay at the deck like the broken dog you are? Or will you rise and scream against the wind, take one last stand, even if futile?

Every muscle, every bone in his body screamed for the deck, for oblivion. Only the voice in his head remained defiant.

“Into the wind, mister!” he said, voice so faint the wind kept even himself from hearing. “The wind!”

The lights blinked, went out, came back. Silas grabbed onto a piece of the forward panel and pulled himself up. There was no one at the wheel — his men had tumbled to the deck, one unconscious, the other moaning with a hand clapped to his bloody scalp.

Silas leapt up and took the wheel.

“We’re into the teeth of it!” he yelled, talking not to his crew, not even to himself, but to his ship. “Steady against the waves! Steady!”

The wind whipped hard against the McLane’s side, and she rolled hard with a strong swell.

“Into the storm. The teeth of the storm!” said Silas, checking his bearings as best he could as the ship lifted and turned at the same time.

He had her. He had her.

“I feel the wind at my face,” he said, reciting an old sailor’s poem as the rain pelted the bridge windscreen. “Come around, come around, there’s fight in us yet!”

37

Quang Ninh Province

Zeus held his breath. The first tank was now beyond the pickup truck that had been fashioned into an IED. The second tank was just reaching the end of the bridge. The third and fourth were about midspan, bumper to bumper.

The night cracked. Zeus thought it was thunder from the storm. Then there was a flash from the road — the truck being detonated.

Then a louder, deeper explosion, and a rumble that felt as if the ground were being pulled away. The bridge went down, taking two tanks with it.

Shrapnel and dirt flew in the air. Zeus pushed his head down. He smelled wet grass and metal.