There were no exceptions. No uncertainty. No qualifiers. No modifiers. Just total, crystalline clarity on that single point.
Hart half expected his high-powered rifle to explode in his hand as it unleashed a round ending Baker’s life and his own. Hart’s trigger pull suddenly seemed too firm. Hart eased the dry skin of his trigger finger off the rigid, grooved metal.
When the Chinese lieutenant led the president and his daughter off the podium, turned for the bridge, and passed the waiting row of limousines on a path toward the river, Hart rested his finger on the outside of the trigger guard and used the scope for observation. By the time they began to ascend the bridge, Hart had begun stealing glances at the round drainpipe down the hill to his left.
He felt a sudden, growing void. A need to populate his future with details. I make it back, then what? he thought with growing alarm. It was a question that he couldn’t answer. He lost track of time. Checked less and less frequently on the bridge. The need to plan consumed him.
He needed a life. Quickly. A life.
Wu turned to warn President Baker and Stephanie Roberts, who followed him in silence. They edged past a huge black pit melted straight through the center of the bridge’s pavement. The white line ended at thin air then reappeared undisturbed down the middle of the listing highway.
Wu turned again. The two walked hip to hip in a supportive, loving embrace. But the daughter leaned noticeably upon the father, whose eyes remained peeled on Wu.
Wu knew he ought to be thinking about what lay just ahead. It was a whirlwind — a grueling pace — choreographed by the finest staffs to the very last, fragmentary detail. He breathed deeply of the cool wind on the bridge. That place, there, was freedom. Maybe the last he’d get to feel for a while.
When they neared the three dead soldiers at the center of the bridge, Wu saw that the faces of the American captain and a Chinese soldier were gruesome and mutilated. A second Chinese soldier had a look of shock on his face and a knife sticking out of his back.
Stephanie Roberts stared from inside her father’s arms with eyes dry and a blank face.
Wu turned and led them on toward the center of the creaking, rusty bridge. They passed the seven dead Chinese soldiers that lay scattered about the electrical house.
“Halt!” all heard shouted in English from behind twisted rebar up ahead.
President Baker raised his hand and motioned toward the American soldiers. They lowered their aims from Wu’s chest and face.
“May I have a word with you?” Wu asked President Baker. “I’m sorry,” he said, turning to Stephanie Roberts. “In private, if you don’t mind.”
Stephie shrugged and headed up the bridge toward the waiting American soldiers. Two riflemen and a medic rushed out to meet her. “I’m all right,” she said, warding off their solicitous, grasping hands. “But there’s a dead American captain down the bridge a few dozen meters. I’d appreciate it if you’d…”
She didn’t have to finish her sentence. The first lieutenant motioned for a squad to jog down the bridge. Stephie’s gaze followed them, and she saw the animated conversation that her father and Wu were having. At least her father was animated. Lieutenant Wu was calm and composed. When her father queried, Wu nodded. When her father shook his head in angry disbelief, Wu assaulted him relentlessly with words. Wu remained expressionless. Her father grew distraught.
“What the hell’s he doing?” a senior noncom asked the first lieutenant.
“He’s taking too long,” the officer said to Stephie.
Stephie proceeded back down the bridge to rejoin the two men.
“I don’t trust you,” she heard her father saying.
“Yes, you do,” the Chinese lieutenant replied.
Both turned to Stephie as she approached and interrupted their private discussion. Her father, however, kept shaking his head, and finally he said, “But why are you telling me this?”
Wu’s lips turned up in what was almost a smile. “Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their party.”
The words seemed to bring the exchange to an end. Stephie’s father stared at Wu with mouth agape, scrutinizing him. “Uhm, Dad,” Stephie said, “we’ve gotta go.” His eyes were fixed on Wu, and his brow was knit with concern, but he nodded. Stephie turned to Wu. “Why don’t you come with us?” she suggested. She took both of Wu’s hands in hers. He stared down at her grip. “Come to our side! Walk over this bridge with us! If you go back, they’ll hang you for sure!”
Wu said nothing. Her father spoke for him.
“No,” he said, staring at Wu. “They won’t harm you, will they?” he asked. “It’s exactly the opposite, isn’t it?”
Wu looked at him, betraying nothing, then back at Stephie’s hands.
“Come with us anyway!” Stephanie said, squeezing.
“I cannot,” Wu replied, “come with you.”
“Why not?” she demanded, squeezing his hands again. Stephie was distracted by the passing of the detail of American soldiers, who double-timed, carrying a black body bag by the handles built into the bag’s four corners.
Wu pulled his hands back. “I am Chinese!” he blurted out, suddenly exhibiting emotion. He composed himself and repeated, more slowly and with emphasis, “I-am-Chinese!”
“Execute your orders!” shouted Hart’s controller via microwave. Hart didn’t risk replying. There was some chance that his whispers might be overheard, as he lay — without moving a muscle — awaiting darkness. There was some chance also that they might convince him to fire at the president, so he lay there, without moving a muscle, listening to the frantic and desperate voices. “Open fire!” screamed one. “Fire, goddammit!” came another voice. “Do him now!” came a third. Nowhere did he hear the voice of the one-eyed colonel. He planned to look the man up and figure out just who the fuck the assholes on the other end of the microwave beam were.
The moment that the president and his daughter sprinted into the cordon of American soldiers who had never left the bridge, Hart’s earbuds fell deathly silent. There wasn’t a voice to be heard.
Cameras swarmed the Chinese lieutenant with a white bandage on his cheek. A large contingent of troops — wearing black, not army green — arrived in black armored fighting vehicles. The black-clad troops surrounded the young lieutenant, but he wasn’t under arrest. They took his orders, and the soldiers in camouflage gave the phalanx wide berth.
A limousine door was slammed in the face of the startled Chinese civilian in a black business suit, who recoiled from the spraying gravel of the spinning tires. Then, it was all over but the cleanup. A few macabre shots by the press of the bloody officers on the platform, then everyone called it a day. Surely an eventful day, Hart thought. He wondered if it might even be historic.
He was a witness, but to what he had no idea. He couldn’t for the life of him figure out what had just happened even though he had a lot of time to think it over as he waited for night to fall. Down below, the valley emptied. Nobody was interested in patrols anymore. The bodies of the general and his aide were tossed — Hart thought disrespectfully — into the back of an open truck.
When the western sky grew dark, Hart decided that he had to try to check in, but the microwave link to Maryland was dead. There was no one on the other end of the line. It was, he concluded, his last official duty.
After a night of hard movement and a tense day spent lying still, the simple act of moving hurt him terribly. As his muscles limbered, however, he felt better and better. By the time he reached the railroad tracks he was practically jogging.