2. Rules of Engagement

They made contact at 0840. The enemy's forward scout was alone, moving along a dry creek bed with the kind of loose, arrogant confidence that meant he thought he was safe. He was wrong by about thirty meters. Dung held up a closed fist. The column froze. The scout passed within ten meters of Corporal Bac, who was pressed against a rock with his breathing controlled and his eyes still. Bac had grown up hunting in the highlands. He understood stillness in a way that could not be taught. The scout moved on. Dung let out a slow breath. "He'll circle back," Hieu murmured beside him. "Give it eight minutes." It took seven. The scout returned along the same route, slower now, more alert—something in the forest had changed and he felt it without knowing what. He stopped five meters from Bac's position. What happened next took four seconds. Bac moved. There was a short, sharp sound. The scout did not make any sound at all. Dung crouched over the body. Enemy insignia—northern division, third company. Elite unit. Which meant the hill was not a checkpoint; it was a forward operating base. "We need to reassess," said Dr. Phuong quietly. "We don't have time to reassess," Dung said. "They'll be looking for him in twenty minutes." "Then we move fast or we don't move at all." He looked at his soldiers. Twenty-three people who had trusted him across forty-eight hours of bad luck and bad maps. He thought about the two routes—east to the river, or forward through the base—and ran the calculations that commanders run, the ones that never come out clean. "Split formation," he said. "Hieu takes twelve through the eastern flank. I take eleven straight up the middle." He looked at Hieu. "You're the distraction." Hieu considered this. "That's a bad job." "You're the best I have." A pause. Then Hieu smiled—the small, dry smile of a man who had accepted worse assignments before. "Try not to get everyone killed in the middle." "Same to you." They split without ceremony. In fifteen minutes, both groups would know whether the plan worked. In fifteen minutes, Dung reflected, they would either be through or they would not be anything at all. He put the thought away and began to move.