Shock of War

The tank commander was blasted into pieces. His right hand and forearm flew in a somersault across the air, landing a few inches from Zeus’s face. Zeus saw the fingers in front of him, extending from the palm as if beseeching God for mercy.

He jerked his head away, closing his eyes involuntarily.

Someone shouted behind him. He was caught off guard, still stunned from the vision of the hand.

They shouted again. He didn’t know what they were saying.

Was it Vietnamese, or Chinese?

Only when Zeus closed his hand did he realize he didn’t have his gun; he’d lost it when he threw himself down. It would have been useless anyway.

He started to spread his arms. Someone shouted, then kicked him down, face-first into the ground.

He rolled to his back, raising his arms to ward off another blow. A rifle was in his face.

A Chinese rifle. The soldier, uniform battered, helmet missing, yelled something in Chinese. Zeus shook his head, trying to show that he didn’t understand.

The man thrust the rifle barrel at Zeus. If he’d had a bayonet, he would have pierced him in the heart.

Zeus started to push himself backward, not sure what the man wanted him to do. The Chinese soldier screamed at him again. Blood trickled from the man’s temple. His face was bright red, as if he’d been burned, as if he was still burning. His eyes were wild and open; he could have been a caricature of hell.

“Sei!” the soldier yelled in Chinese.

He continued, telling Zeus that he was a dead man, that there was no hope or escape. He screamed the same word over and over, but the one word was an entire paragraph, a long demand.

“Sei!”

He wanted to see Zeus’s fear. He wanted him to run before he killed him. For it wasn’t Zeus he was going to shoot; it was his own terror and dread. The horror of battle had unnerved him.

Zeus had no way out. The Chinese soldier prodded Zeus with the barrel of the gun, smacking it against his chin.

If he tries it again, I can grab it, he thought.

But there was a second thought: Maybe he wants me to stand so he can take me prisoner.

He knew from the man’s expression that this couldn’t be true — the man was possessed, acting according to some logic only his unhinged mind understood. But even so, Zeus wanted the second idea to be true — it offered some hope.

The man yelled his word again. Losing hope that Zeus would do what he said, the soldier drew back his gun and aimed at the American.

“Sei!”

There was loud crack, a single shot.

To Zeus’s amazement, the Chinese soldier fell down to his right, so close to him that blood splattered across his face.

“Major Murphy,” croaked Chau in his hoarse voice, running up and standing over him. He was huffing. “I am glad you are still alive.”

17

Mariveles, the Philippines

Ric Kerfer folded his arms in front of his chest and took a step backward. In all his time in the Navy, he had never seen so many goddamn weapons gathered in one place before. The dock was literally overrun with boxes and crates, and the warehouse behind it was already half-packed. All manner of Russian ordinance was stacked all over the pier. There were bullets and shells and seven different varieties of antitank weapons. There were AT-14 missiles and jellied petroleum for flamethrowers. There were five-hundred-pound bombs, and cases for SA-7s. Most the munitions were older than he was, but the sheer amount of them was damn impressive.

Too impressive. He only had the single C-130 to get all this crap to Vietnam.

What to do?

The Filipinos he’d recruited as stevedores looked at him anxiously. It would have helped if someone told him what the damn priorities were. Good ol’ Braney hadn’t given him a clue.

He’d taken antitank weapons on the first trip. But you could never have too many.

Kerfer began walking down the row of crates. He’d elected to study Russian at one of his schools way back when, but the truth was, he didn’t remember crap from those days, and the Cyrillic letters might just as well have been inkblots.

Besides, they all claimed to be things they weren’t, like kitchen utensils. One of the Russians had given him a sheaf of papers with the key, but it was all confused.

Kerfer stopped at a crate he thought held more AT-14s. When he opened it, he saw Boltoks — missiles that were launched from tanks.

“Take these for the plane,” he told his stevedores. “Two boxes, no, four. We’ll keep the numbers even.”

A little bit of everything. That was the key. Definitely throw in some artillery shells. Army guys always like that.

And as soon as he had everything picked out, he’d call for another plane.

Or maybe twenty.

18

Inland from Halong Bay

Chau had been separated from the others when the boats were hit, falling into the water and then swimming or floating — he wasn’t sure which — north. By the time he got himself together, the other firefight was already underway. He slipped down through the fields, arriving at the houses after they had been destroyed. There he’d found Sergeant Angkor hunkered over the last missile, waiting for the smoke to clear so he’d get a shot. They’d stalked the tank, then found Zeus by accident.

“There are more tanks coming,” Zeus told Chau. “Hear them? Do you have more missiles?”

“That was the last,” said Chau.

“There are more cases by the water,” said Zeus. “Let’s get them.”

He started to run, then looked back when he realized they weren’t following.

“What’s wrong, Chau?”

“We have wounded.”

“We’ll come back for them,” said Zeus. “We’re not leaving them.”

Chau and Angkor began talking, apparently debating what to do. Zeus didn’t wait. He started trotting again, then running, crossing the field and heading back toward the shore where he had seen the floating boxes. He was soaked, his uniform and face covered with mud and blood.

As Zeus approached the shoreline, he noticed a narrow lane running to the water, which he hadn’t seen before. It took him a little to the east, out of his way, but the path was high and mostly dry all the way out to the water. There it gave way to boulders and carefully positioned logs.

Three of the missile cases had washed in. Zeus grabbed them, sliding them onto the path. There were four other boxes nearby, all half-submerged in the water. He took a step toward the closest, and immediately felt his leg sinking. He pushed back and fell rump first onto the rocks.

The rocks extended in a kind of submerged ledge to the left. He stepped out on it tentatively, then worked his way sideways a few feet until he was almost parallel with one of the boxes. He reached out and dragged it up through the water, pulling it to land.