"You helped me before."
"I don't remember that. I told you."
Lan's eyebrows drew together quizzically. "What do you remember?"
Remo sat down with his back to the alligator-hide bark of a rubber tree and looked up into the too-bright morning sky.
"Vietnam," he said distantly. "I remember Vietnam."
Chapter 14
The Hind gunship deposited Captain Dai Chim Sao at a staging area twelve miles inside the Cambodian border. Dai stepped off the skid before it fully settled on the ground. The rotors kicked up the reddish-brown dust of the dry season. He pinched his eyes shut to keep out the grit.
A short, buck-toothed officer hurried up to greet him.
"Captain Dai?" he asked.
"Who else would I be? What can you tell me about the American?"
"We know he is in this sector," said the officer, leading Dai to a string of waiting T-72 tanks. "One of our patrol helicopters radioed that it had found him. Then all communication ceased. We think the helicopter has been lost."
"How far?"
"Ten kilometers south. Not more than fifteen. Do you wish to lead the convoy?"
"That is my duty," said Captain Dai, climbing into the passenger seat of a Land Rover. He struck the driver on the shoulder as a sign to proceed. "I will not shirk it."
The officer jumped into the back as the Land Rover turned smartly and took the south road.
"You do not waste time," said the officer, waving for the tanks to fall in line behind them.
"I have no time to waste," Captain Dai said grimly. He unholstered a nine-millimeter Sig Sauer pistol and made a show of checking the action.
This is a man trying to prove himself, the officer thought. It would not be a good assignment, even though the American was alone.
The sun wallowed high in the shimmering sky. But even at midday, there was no traffic on the road. Occasionally they came to a crater where a mine had gone off, and around the crater the shattered remains of a truck. One mangled door bore the flag decal of Vietnam.
"Khmer Rouge," Lan explained. "They fight the Vietnamese same way the VC used to fight Americans."
"Turned the tables, huh?" Remo mused. He was still trying to fit the pieces together. There was no question that things had changed. He trusted Lan now, even if he couldn't believe her story. Not entirely. Not yet.
"You say the war is over," Remo said. They stuck to the side of the road, just in case they had to melt into the tree line. Remo had stripped one Vietnamese of his uniform and boots, donning them only after he removed all insignias. It made him feel like a soldier again, even though everything was two sizes too small.
"Yes. War over long time. For America. Not for Vietnam. Always new war for Vietnam. Vietnam fight China after Americans go. Now fight Kampucheans. Tomorrow, who know?"
"How long has it been over?" Remo asked. He searched his mind for a familiar memory. Yesterday was a blank. He could not even remember last month. His memory was clearer the further back he searched it, but recent events were vague. It was like looking down a tunnel. The walls were dark. But there was daylight at the end. What was it they used to say about the light at the end of the tunnel?
"War over ten-fifteen years now. Longtime."
Remo whirled. "Fifteen years!"
Lan stopped dead in her tracks. Remo snapped his rifle up defensively.
"I tell truth. Americans go in 1973. Saigon fall 1975."
"Crap!"
"Not crap. True. Lan tell truth!"
"And I suppose I've been asleep in a rice paddy all that time." Remo sneered. "Like freaking Rip Van Winkle."
"Not understand."
"The last thing I can remember is fighting in Vietnam. In 1968. What have I been doing for twenty years?"
Lan shrugged. "How Lan know? It your life."
Remo looked at her without speaking. Her face was troubled and confused. He wanted to believe that she was his friend-he desperately needed one but her story was ridiculous. It was impossible.
"I don't know what I'm going to do with you," he said slowly.
"Do nothing, then. I go." And Lan turned on her heel and walked in the opposite direction. Remo watched her go, half-wistful, and half-afraid that if he turned his back she would back-shoot him. Maybe she was VC after all. Maybe he was being set up for some elaborate brainwashing trick. He wondered if he'd been drugged. He still felt light-headed.
Lan's hair switched like an angry pony's tail as she walked off. She did not look back. Not even as she disappeared around a bend in the road.
Remo stood in the middle of the road, feeling foolish. "Aw, hell," he said, and started after her. He walked at first, then started running. His feet felt like lead in the canvas Vietnamese boots. Funny they would feel like that. American boots were heavier. Canvas boots shouldn't feel like lead weights on his feet. He was a marine. Yet he felt like his whole body was screwed up.
Maybe he had been asleep for years. What else would explain it all?
Automatic-weapons fire chattered not far off. Remo dashed into the bush.
"Dung lai! Dung lai!" a man's voice cracked. He was calling for someone to halt.
"Khoung! Remo!" It was Lan's voice. And then an AK-47 opened up.
Remo hurtled down the road like a linebacker. He plunged into the trees when he got to the bend and came out beside a low-slung tank. A Vietnamese soldier up in the turret hatch was sweeping the road with a pedestal-mounted .50-caliber gun.
Remo picked him off with one shot.
There was another tank behind the first, and a third idling at the rear. A Land Rover sat on a flat tire in the mud. Three soldiers crouched behind it, working their weapons.
Remo saw Lan dart between two trees. The crouching soldiers opened up on her with small arms.
"Hey!" Remo yelled, trying to think of the worst curse in the Vietnamese tongue. "Do may! Do may!" The soldiers turned at the sound of his voice. Remo waved at them, then vaulted onto the first tank and disappeared into the open turret hatch.
Captain Dai Chim Sao heard the American voice accuse him of sleeping with his mother, and a chill swept through him. He spun on his heels, still crouching. "There!" he pointed. "The American."
But before they could open up, he disappeared into the lead tank, past a dead machine-gunner. Muffled shots came from the tank's interior. Then there was silence.
"You and you," Dai said. "Lay down covering fire on that girl. I will get the American's body."
"How do you know he is dead?" the officer asked.
"Because there are three brave Vietnamese soldiers in that tank. They have shot him. Do as I say."
The officer shrugged and started firing at the trees. Captain Dai ran for the shelter of the far tank's tread, worked his way back, and climbed onto the rear deck. Just as quickly, he jumped back onto the road.
The tapered turret was swinging around, its .125-millimeter smoothbore cannon nearly knocking him in the head. What was happening?
When the turret was pointing back at the other tanks, the cannon fired. Once, twice. Captain Dai screamed as the successive concussions pounded his eardrums. He hugged the ground. Shrapnel flew. A steel wheel wobbled past his head and clattered to the ground like a manhole cover.
Captain Dai looked up. The second tank was in ruins. Then he got a blast of exhaust as the tank containing the American started up. Dai scrambled out of the way of a rolling tread as the tank jockeyed around the destroyed machine and bore down on the third T-72.
The hatches on the third tank popped and the crew came out like ants from an anthole. They poured off the tank's plate sides just in time. Captain Dai was certain his painful scream was louder than the cannon roar. The third tank took a direct hit. It was enveloped in flames.
Then the first tank rolled across the flattened front end of the damaged tank and worked back toward the Land Rover. The driver and the officer showed stern stuff. They bounced bullets off the tank before they split in opposite directions. The tank climbed across the Land Rover, mashing it flat. A tire burst under the pressure of those remorseless treads.