“Give-’em-hell, Mr. President!” the soldiers shouted to their commander in chief, who smiled and nodded awkwardly. “We’re gonna kick their butts back to Beijing!” came another cry from another truck. Stephie was thrilled to see the adoration of the troops for the man whom she also adored, but her father seemed disconcerted by the raucous greetings and shouts. Scrawled in white paint on one of the old green trucks were the words, “Going home to Miami!” with the same words repeated beneath it in Spanish. The driver — with the truck still moving slowly — climbed out onto his window and caught the attention of the president with thickly accented shouts hurled over the roof of his cab. “Hey! Hey! Mr. President! We gonna fuck they asses up, man!”
The two soldiers riding in the cab pulled the crazy driver back to the wheel and then rained shouts and blows onto him. The driver responded with combative, shouted defenses, but returned the straying vehicle to the road.
“Sir,” the head of his Secret Service detail said, nervously eyeing the southern hills, “we ought to get going.”
Stephie took a step back and saluted her father just like all her other comrades in arms.
“Don’t you worry, Mr. President!” shouted one of the passing soldiers. “This is the Fightin’ 41st! Nobody’s gettin’ into Washington, sir! Just ain’t gonna happen!”
A fountain of cheers rose from all around, but especially from Charlie Company, which was gathered about their parked trucks. Stephie still stood ramrod straight with her fingertips held steady to the brim of her helmet. She was filthy. Small, iron-on patches of shiny fabric patched rips and tears in her uniform and still further randomized the mottled woodlands camouflage pattern. Her once black combat boots were so scuffed and scraped as to look ready for the trash heap, but their heels were locked tightly together in good military form. She had never been more proud. Proud of Charlie Company. Proud of the Fightin’ 41st!
And proud of her father, who finally returned her salute. When they embraced a final time, she heard over the continuing jubilation from the procession of vehicles the ragged breathing from her father’s chest. She understood then how near he was to breaking down again, so she pulled herself from his arms, which were reluctant to free her.
“Good-bye, Dad,” she said simply.
He tried to reply, but couldn’t. His lips contorted, and he dashed off through the gap in traffic created by the outstretched arms of a Secret Service agent. At first he just walked quickly. Then, he began to jog before finally disappearing with head bowed into Marine One.
Wu looked out of the armored command car as he was driven along the pleasant residential streets of the suburban Washington town. The cold wind whistled through the open hatch in the roof as a soldier in the rear stood behind a machine gun. Wu’s hopes sank as he saw no sign of life in neighborhood after neighborhood. No smoke from chimneys. No cars. No trash at the curb spirited out of houses in the middle of the night by frightened homeowners.
The residents of Alexandria had had the time to evacuate, and they had taken that opportunity. Perhaps some day soon, Wu thought, the people of America would have nowhere to run. The thought — of victory — was strangely upsetting.
Every so often, they passed blackened armored fighting vehicles. Some were American. Their sides bore the Chinese character for “safe” drawn in thick white paint. But most of the dead vehicles were Chinese. Fifteen-, twenty-, thirty-to-one had been the lopsided Chinese losses as they jockeyed for position on the outskirts of the American capital. As Wu’s armored command car wove past the obstacles, he grew ever more upset.
One of the soldiers in the back leaned forward in his seat with his head bent over a map.
“Left, left!” he shouted too late.
The driver slammed on the brakes, cursed, threw the vehicle into reverse, and backed up. He gunned the engine and made the left turn with knobby tires squealing. The driver liked high speeds, Wu had noted. He seemed to hate stopping and hated backtracking even more. Wu now scrutinized the dark, mirrored windows with a new degree of alertness. He joined the other jumpy soldiers in the command car in their search for a life-saving, split-second warning of an ambush. They weren’t worried about American Special Forces teams despite the fact that all knew their rear to be crawling with the highly accomplished killers. Those professionals would never attack during the day. They worried instead, Wu knew, about partisans. Patriots. Suicidal fanatics who cared not between night and day. Between life and death.
The navigator in the rear made the driver slow at the next intersection. The machine gun’s ring mount atop the roof squeaked as the gunner swivelled the weapon left and right. “Hurry up!” the driver urged.
“Ma-puh,” the navigator tried to read off the street sign that lay — uncollected — beside the curb.
“Maple,” Wu read for him, translating it into Chinese. “This is it. ‘Maple Street.’ ”
“Turn here!” the navigator prompted, and the vehicle’s turbine engine whined to life.
The navigator counted off the houses in Chinese by the street numbers stenciled on the curb. “6707. 6709. 6713. 6715! There! There it is!”
Wu’s eyes were already fixed on the one-story redbrick home, It looked old, but at one time it must have been respectable. The white paint was peeling off the eaves. Straw and leaves obscured the yellowing grass. A decrepit car of indeterminate color sat parked under a blanket of half-melted snow.
Wu opened the front passenger-side door. The five soldiers began to pour out.
“No!” Wu ordered. “Stay in the vehicle.”
The men looked at each other. None wanted to get out of the armored car. None had wanted to go there all alone, without even informing the local commander of their whereabouts. But they were, Wu could tell, almost equally concerned about his safety. About their own fates were Wu to meet with any harm.
“I won’t be long,” Wu said to pacify them. He stepped out into the fresh winter air.
The adhesive letters affixed to the metal mailbox were half missing, but the name was clearly “Fisher.” Wu headed up the front walk. His boots crunched through the unswept leaves. He climbed the three concrete steps to the front door and raised his gloved hand to knock. He hesitated, then took his gloves and helmet off. He put both under his arms and knocked.
There was no answer.
He knocked again. And then again, more loudly. And then a last time. He heard no noise from inside. She wasn’t home. She was gone. She had fled like the rest of them.
Wu’s heart plummeted. He bowed his head and sighed. Of course she would want to escape the dangers of the fighting, Wu thought, but that rationalization did nothing to cushion the disappointment.
He glanced back at the armored car. The faces of the soldiers were fixed expectantly on Wu. He returned his gaze to the front door. This is, still, her home, Wu thought. He recorded the sights, sounds, and smells of the home, but found the effort unsatisfying.
He abruptly unslung his rifle, stepped away from the door, and fired at the knob. The soldiers at the street were half out of the command car before Wu motioned them back inside. On Wu’s third shot, the hardware popped off the door and fell to the front steps with a metal jangle heard as the echoes from the rifle’s report died down.