Indecision was clear in the first guard’s furrowed brow. After a moment, he faced Marion again, and she sensed his reluctance. With that came a rush of adrenaline. She was going to get her way. Just like Sassy would have.
“You not talk, not make a sound. You do what I say. When you are killed, is not my fault.”
If, she wanted to exclaim.You meanifI am killed.Instead, she nodded. “My fault. I understand. When can we go?”
Both men glanced at the door to the hospital then at each other. They said something back and forth in Vietnamese then shrugged. The first man approached Marion and fastened a leather belt around her waist, then he held up a pistol.
“You know this?”
Her mind flew back to Daniel’s lessons, and how she’d giggled self-consciously, insisting she’d never need to use it.
“Yes, I know this,” she told the guard.
He slid the pistol into a holster on her belt. “Is loaded.”
For some reason, seeing it hanging on her hip frightened her, so she draped the bottom of her khaki shirt over the top. The second man opened a tin he’d taken from his pocket, revealing a dark green paste, which he smeared over her face. It smelled rank, and she instantly wanted to scratch, but she kept her hands where they were.
“We go,” the first man said. “Me is Bao. He is Ky. Is four more coming, too. You is not making noise.”
The deeper they went in the jungle, the more petrified she became. After a while, she feared he might turn on her for being noisy, with her thundering heartbeat and chattering teeth. She had no right to be out here, traipsing silently through the trees behind Bao and the other five, doing “recon.” Careful of roots snagging her feet and branches scratching her arms, she scanned the thick canopy of leaves overhead, always searching for threats. If they were ambushed, Daniel had said, she would never see the light of day again.
It took about an hour of stealthy hiking before she finally heard a man’s voice. Bao made a downward movement with his hand, and everyone, including Marion, dropped. The voice was clearly Vietnamese, and it seemed unconcerned about possibly being heard. Bao, Ky, and the others crouched near her, listening hard.
“No good,” Bao told her quietly. “Too many prisoners.”
“Is Major Neumann a prisoner?”
“Not major,” he reported.
“How many?” she whispered.
He shook his head then said something to Ky, who stayed where he was while Bao moved closer to the camp. He returned quickly.
“Three sick men in hut,” he said.
The image made Marion temporarily forget about Daniel. “I need to help. I need to see how sick they are.”
“Is much sick. You fix later.”
A dog barked, making her jump.
“Stay,” Bao said to her, as if she was the dog itself. Then he and the others moved swiftly forward and vanished into the trees.
It happened again, a frenzied string of barks that set off her internal alarm, and one of the men in the camp shouted at the animal to be quiet. If the dog was some kind of alarm system for the camp, the men weren’t minding him. Unable to sit still another moment, Marion glided through the brush in the direction Bao and Ky had gone. To her dismay, they were no longer there. She was alone.
She crouched, shaking so hard the plants around her quivered, acutely aware that her life depended upon staying as still as possible.Be calm, she ordered herself. Inhale. Exhale. 1-2-3, 3-2-1.The least she could do was not pass out and become a liability. But it took a while to get to the point where her pulse was regular.
Beyond the tall grasses in front of her, something moved. A brown shadow travelling within a forest of green, like the smooth passing of a deer. She stared at the spot, willing herself not to blink while she waited for more, but the shadow was gone. Without a breeze, nothing in the surrounding forest moved. Had it been her imagination? She trained her eyes on the cleared area straight ahead, and she spotted the large, shabbily built hut Bao had mentioned. It stood at one corner of the compound, listing slightly, its dark wood boards partly eaten by humidity. She saw no movement near it, so she scanned the larger area, and her startled gaze landed on three Vietnamese men leaning against a wagon near the other side of the camp, smoking and talking among themselves. How many others were here?
A swish in the grass, and Marion fell back with a gasp. She almost laughed, weak with relief when Bao crouched beside her, glowering. He was clearly unimpressed with how close she had snuck.
“Not my fault. You remember.”
She nodded, but he saw the question in her expression.
“I am not seeing major. I see six, maybe seven Vietcong.” He grinned, a slash of white against his painted face. “They not seeing us. You have gun?”
She tapped the pistol at her hip, hidden under the tail of her shirt. Then he was off.
