Subterrene War 03: Chimera (41 page)

“Will he make it?” I asked.

“Be quiet, Lieutenant. The tunnel is soundproofed, but I don’t know all their capabilities.”

“Damn it, Kristen,” I said, getting more and more delirious. “Call me Bug.”

T
he first thing I noticed when I woke was that, for the moment, the pain had vanished. Remorro and Orcola sat next to me, laughing, and at first there wasn’t any sound except for dripping water as it pattered on a transparent plastic sheet that someone had draped over me to keep the rain off, and it made me wonder why they’d put me outside. But I
wasn’t
outside. Orcola pulled the sheet back, and overhead the distant booming of plasma artillery shook the rock around me and vibrated the hospital rack on which I rested. It confused me. I didn’t recognize anything about the small chamber in which I lay, and the two kept laughing so that I had to look up in panic to make sure that all my limbs were there, and even then something was wrong.

“Why are you laughing?” I croaked.

Remorro shook his head. “You are in deep shit. Momson himself is on his way now, and the Thai Army spared one of their rotary wings to get him from Bangkok to Nu Poe. You know how rare it is for those bastards to let
anyone
use one of their precious rotary wings?”

“Why?”

“Why what?” he asked.

“Why is Momson coming?” Speaking was difficult. My throat felt dry despite a saline drip that fed water into my arm, and it was as if someone had taken sandpaper to my vocal chords.

“Because you killed her,” said Orcola. “I guess you weren’t supposed to wipe Margaret, although why that’s the case is a freakin’ mystery to us.
We
think you deserve a medal. Maybe now the Thai Army can get these girls under control. We’ve even been recalled and leave with the rotary wing.”

The comment made me angry, which was shocking; Orcola’s view made sense. With the Thai Army and
Gra Jaai
at odds—at the worst possible time, during a war—it must have been impossible for anything to get done, and now there was a path forward, another chance at reconciliation. Then I realized it wasn’t that part that had annoyed me; it was that Orcola approved of Margaret’s death.

“You don’t know shit,” I said.

“I’ll tell you what I know. Five Laotian and Cambodian Army groups are on their way now, and already their advance forces are crammed into every empty space we could find. Naval advisers from Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, India, and the Philippines too. The worm has turned, and the craziest of the
Gra Jaai
are talking about being able to hold back the Chinese, maybe even invade Burma to just wipe the whole fucking country clean. India is screaming mad at Chinese border incursions and is ready to go nuclear.”

The sound of a deeper pounding now came from the
side, not overhead. It shook my bed as though someone on the other side of the rock walls had turned a subwoofer all the way up and pointed it at my head.

“What are you
talking
about? What’s that pounding?”

Remorro offered me a cigarette and I took it, waiting for him to light it as he spoke. “Turns out that months ago the Thai King authorized
Gra Jaai
diplomatic missions to every country in southeast Asia. Everyone knows that when Thailand falls, Laos is next and then Vietnam, after which Beijing has the whole South China Sea. So nobody wants China to win here. Several countries sent troops, and if you thought the Thai Army was pissed at the girls
before
you left… For a day or so we thought the generals would try for a coup. The Army was kept totally out of the loop until the last minute and doesn’t want any of these guys here; it’s an Asian thing; the Thais hate the Laotians and Cambodians, the Cambodians hate the Laotians and Thais, and the only thing they all have in common is that
everyone
hates the goddamn Chinese.”

“And,” Orcola added, “that deeper sound is from plasma artillery.
Gra Jaai
. They’ve been building the stuff for years, in secret, and had hidden artillery positions all along the line but didn’t use it until now. Gotta hand it to them.”

I sucked on the cigarette until it was a nub, then spat it out to ask for another. Remorro lit it. The water dripped on my face now, warm and nauseating, but it soon cooled to make me feel better as though it was washing away the clay and blood, scrubbing the last remnants of jungle from my pores. While we sat there nobody spoke. I didn’t want them to. Now that I’d gotten used to Nu Poe and spent time in its jungle, the pair of men looked like misfits, skinny cutouts from a Special Forces recruiting ad whom the girls
would never let into their inner sanctum and who therefore would never amount to anything useful. To anyone. Their opinions were equivalent to those of talking heads on the news holos, always offering advice and analysis, none of which was worth a damn.

They stood when Lucy entered, and Remorro and Orcola said their good-byes, leaving me with a pack of cigarettes and a lighter; I was glad to see them go.

Lucy stood next to me and grinned. “You honored her.”

I shook my head. “I killed her.”

“Do you think she wasn’t ready, that she hadn’t prayed for your arrival?” Lucy pulled a chair closer and sat, staring past me and at the wall. “She saw your arrival over a year ago and had everything planned for it—plasma artillery, asking our neighbors for help against the Chinese if they came, everything.”

“I know where you’re headed, Lucy. You want to know if I’ll take the job as head crazy of crazies, and to tell you the truth, part of me wants to, but I don’t know.”

“Why?” she asked. “What is so difficult about making the decision?” When I didn’t answer, Lucy nodded. “Well, in the meantime I need you to do us a favor.” I noticed then that she had a bag, out of which she pulled a light orange jacket, dark green dress pants and shirt, and a pair of boots. “
Pretend
you’re our leader.”

“You want me to lie? Isn’t that a little cowardly?”

She nodded and laughed. “Yes. But necessary. I will pay the price for the lie if you decide to leave us, but if you stay, then the deception is as if it never existed.”

“Why?” I asked. “What do you need?”

“Above us in a conference room are generals and representatives from multiple armies, including the Thai.
The Laotians and Cambodians refuse to accept Thai command. The Thais won’t budge on their need to lead all forces and are insisting that the Laotians and Cambodians leave if they don’t agree. And none of them will serve us, the
Gra Jaai.
”

“And that surprises you? I have news for you, Lucy, most people think the
Gra Jaai
and your religion are completely insane.”

Lucy nodded again. “Concur. But that’s not why they won’t concede command to us.”

“Well, then, what
is
the problem?”

“The same one we’ve always had. The nonbred created us and cannot conceive of serving under our leadership. They hate us.”

The enormity of what she was asking made me feel sick. This was politics. For the situation she described, Lucy would need a real leader, someone who understood strategies and the subtleties associated with commanding mixed forces in what was the strangest setting imaginable in the most important conflict the region had faced since the last Asian War.

“I’m no leader,” I said. “You need someone they’ll respect and believe. Someone they wouldn’t dare reject. I have no clue about military strategy and barely have a grasp of small unit tactics. For the past few years I’ve been an assassin, a killer. It’s all I’ve ever been good at, but it’s not something a Thai general is likely to respect.”

Lucy threw her cigarette to the ground and rested the uniform over my legs. “We respect it, and that’s what matters. The Chinese are boring toward us now, and they’re bombarding the trenches above with artillery and air strikes. Do you believe in God yet, Lieutenant?”

“You know I don’t. Margaret must have told you before she died.”

“Well,” said Lucy, “we do. And Margaret did. She knew that we’d need the help of the other Asian nations and that the only person they’d follow would be nonbred—a non-
Thai
nonbred. You. It doesn’t matter that you don’t know strategy or tactics because we can take care of that.”

“What do I have to do?” I asked.

“Be yourself. And
try
to trust that this is in God’s hands, not yours.”

I stared at the orange jacket. It was a pale color, more like pumpkin, and had two white shoulder patches with red crosses, and along one sleeve was a line of horizontal red stripes fringed with white piping. Above the left breast pocket was a sea of fruit salad—tiny ribbons in hundreds of different patterns and colors, the uppermost of which was a rectangular green ribbon with a tiny white lily in its center. An enamel lily had been affixed to each collar.

I pointed to the green ribbon, my finger on the lily. “What’s this ribbon?”

“That one signifies your last patrol and the death of Margaret, your greatest achievement. The others are for the actions you saw the last time you fought in Burmese bush wars, for Kazakhstan and for every mission in between. The lily is the symbol of leadership in the
Gra Jaai,
our highest honor, and it represents those who are pure killers.”

“And the red stripes?”

“One for each of our sisters you assassinated in your hunts.”

I stared at her. “How the hell did you get all the information? It’s not like it’s available in the press.”

“We,” said Lucy with a smile, “have important contacts in the Thai Army. I didn’t know you had fought here before.”

“It’s not something I advertise.”

The completeness of it impressed me. Although the jacket’s color seemed odd, it went with the rest of the uniform and with the
Gra Jaai
’s tendency to want to stand out. Even now I didn’t understand them completely; they wanted to honor the person who’d murdered their leader, wanted to follow
me
, and even knowing that I was no general hadn’t detracted from Lucy’s enthusiasm in the least.

“Fine,” I said. “I’ll pretend. But this doesn’t mean I’m taking the job.”

She smiled and started to lift me from the bed, pulling the IVs out. “We need to move now. I’ll help you get dressed.”

“Jesus,” I hissed. As soon as I sat up, the pain returned, and my head started to swim. “Am I going to live?”

“You’ll be fine,” Lucy said, bending down to start sliding the pants on. “We’ll take you to a briefing first, on our tactical and strategic situation, then meet with the generals and admirals.”

“How’s Jihoon?”

She looked up. “He’s not doing well. We couldn’t retrieve his leg from the jungle, and he lost a lot of blood. He’ll make it, and American doctors can grow him a new limb, but mentally…”

“Fuck it,” I said. “Let’s get this over with so I can pay him a visit and get drunk.”

I followed Lucy into the conference room, my shirt and jacket pulled onto my left arm but draped over my
wounded right shoulder. It felt like a costume more than a uniform. As soon as we entered, the
Gra Jaai
—including the satos—snapped to attention around the room’s edge, forcing the others silent as they sat and stared at me. None of them rose. I recognized the Thai general, the one who had glared at me in Bangkok, who sat at the head of a long table with his subordinates on either side, and senior officers from at least four other countries filled the remaining seats.

Everyone waited. My skin crawled with the sudden sensation that I was out of my element, and it took only a second to decide that this was a mistake because I was sure that the men and women saw through me, recognized me as the imposter I was. What had Lucy been thinking? After more than a week in the field, I’d lost several pounds and must have looked gaunt, and when I raised my less-injured arm to run a hand through my hair was surprised to find it all gone, before remembering that it had burned off. I had no idea what my face looked like. But the expression of shock on an Indian admiral’s face, a woman, said it all, and if she looked
that
disgusted it must have been bad.

I leaned over and whispered to Lucy. “I know the Thai general. He already doesn’t like me.”

“Don’t worry about it. A week from now you have an audience with the King, where you’ll present evidence that he and several of the other Army commanders have been planning a coup. He’s of no concern.”

I grinned at the man, who smiled back and spoke loudly so that everyone at the table could hear while Lucy translated.

“This man is a drunk. A lieutenant. He disobeyed
American orders, and his handlers are on their way here now, to pick up their trash.” A couple of officers chuckled, but most waited as the Thai general placed a pair of glasses on his nose. “Where were we?”

“You’re in my seat,” I said.

He glanced back at me. “Run along. Colonel Momson should be here in a few minutes, and you can visit the Khlong Toei brothels before we kick you out. I’ve heard all about you.”

Now he was pissing me off. The general looked smug as he tapped his fingers on the table, waiting for my reaction, and I stepped forward, trying to ignore the pain from my shoulder.

“Get out of my seat. Now. Or I’ll have my girls beat the shit out of you.”