Satori - Don Winslow [146]
Behind him, the porters moved toward the trees.
Nicholai looked back to the dike and saw Signavi talk into a radio attached to the backpack of one of his soldiers.
No, Nicholai thought, please no.
He raised his rifle, sighted in, took a deep breath, and fired. The bullet hit Signavi in the high spine, and he clutched at his back and then fell.
But it was too late.
Only a minute later, Nicholai heard the plane engine, and then he saw it, but this time it didn’t drop low to strafe, but stayed high until it was directly above the rectangle of grass, and then it dropped its load.
Napalm.
The grass caught fire immediately, and a wall of flame rolled toward them.
Men ignited like torches and spun madly around, shrieking. Others seemed to simply melt.
Nicholai took Solange’s hand and ran.
The wave of flame rolled behind them like a fiery red tsunami from a nightmare. Nicholai felt it scorch his back and singe his hair as the intense heat seemed to suck the air from his lungs.
He pushed Solange into the trees.
Quoc was thirty yards ahead of them, waving them forward.
But leaves above him were inexplicably dropping. Leaves don’t fall in the springtime, Nicholai thought weirdly, then he saw that bullets were clipping them off the branches and at the far end of the copse he saw Vietnamese militia coming toward them.
We are dead stones, he thought.
The flames were fast coming up behind, the French rapidly working their way to the left, and the militia was in front and on the right. If we run to the front, right or left, Nicholai saw, we will only run straight into the guns. If we stay here, we will burn.
Surviving was not an option.
They had only a choice of death.
Quoc waved violently. “Here! Here!”
Nicholai looked more closely and saw a Viet Minh crouch at Quoc’s feet and then —
— disappear.
Into the earth.
Tunnels, he thought.
Our motherland will swallow us.
Sure enough, when he reached the middle of the copse, Nicholai saw small square openings. The Viet Minh were taking the rocket launchers out of the crates and handing them down the tunnel entrances.
“Come on,” Quoc said, pointing to the little square hole at his feet.
It was narrow.
Solange could squeeze through it, maybe Nicholai could.
“You first,” he said.
She balked. “I told you — I’m claustrophobic. I can’t.”
“You have to.”
He helped Solange get down into the square hole and watched as she wiggled her shoulder and made her way down. Then he looked forward to the far end of the copse. He could make out individual soldiers. They were advancing too quickly for the Viet Minh to get the rest of the weapons down the tunnel. Even if they did, they wouldn’t have time to cover up the entrances again, or escape in what could only be a vast and complicated maze of tunnels.
They would be trapped and caught.
Solange with them.
Quoc misapprehended his hesitation. “You are also afraid of tight spaces?”
Nicholai smiled, thinking of his blissful days exploring caves with his Japanese friends. “No.”
He pointed toward the advancing troops. “We need more time.”
“Yes.”
“Take care of her,” Nicholai said. “She isn’t one of your ‘ten.’ ”
“You have my word.”
Quoc quickly chose five of his best men and Nicholai went with them toward the edge of the copse. The gunfire increased, branches dropped on them, men fell. When they got to the edge of the trees, one of the Viet Minh bent over and opened a square of earth.
Then they lay down and started to fire across the open ground.
Nicholai felt a body fall beside him, then he was face-to-face with the blazing green eyes of angry Solange. “I said I wasn’t leaving without you.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t ever do that again.”
She laid the stock of the machine pistol against her cheek and started shooting.
Diamond flattened himself onto the ground and peered through the grass at the copse of trees.
Nicholai Hel was trapped