Shadows of War Read Free Page A

was really a matter of tuning one’s ears. But as with much the gray-haired monks said, there was meaning beyond the words.
    â€œAre we in the right place?” asked Private Po.
    â€œSsshhh,” replied Jing Yo.
    His own breath was loud in his ears. He slowed his lungs, leaning forward. The jungle had many sounds—water, somewhere ahead, brush swaying in the wind—a small animal—
    Two footsteps, ahead.
    Barely ten yards away.
    â€œYour rifle,” Jing Yo said to the private, reaching for it.
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    Josh tried to hold his breath as he slipped forward. They were very close, close enough for him to have heard a voice.
    He stepped around a low rock ledge, edging into a thick fold of brush. He wanted to move faster, but he knew that would only make more noise. Stealth was more important than speed. If he was quiet, they might miss him.
    Something shifted nearby. A cough.
    They were much closer than he’d thought—ten yards, less, just beyond the clump of trees where he’d paused a moment ago.
    Move more quickly , he told himself. But just as quietly.
    He took two steps, then panic finally won its battle, and he began to run.

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    It was not sound but smell that gave their prey away. The smell was odd, light and almost flowerlike, an odd, unusual perfume for the jungle, so strange that Jing Yo thought at first it must be a figment of his imagination.
    Then he realized it was the scent of Western soap.
    He turned the rifle in the scent’s direction, then heard something moving, stumbling, running.
    He rose. A body ran into the left side of the scope, a fleeting shadow.
    It would not be useful to kill him, Jing Yo thought. But before he could lower his rifle, a shot rang out.
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    The bullet flew well above Josh’s head, whizzing through the trees. There was another, and another and another, just as there had been that night when he was a boy.
    He’d had many nightmares of that night. His sleeping mind often twisted the details bizarrely, putting him in the present, as a grown man trying to escape, changing the setting—often to the school or even his uncle’s house, where he’d gone to live—and occasionally the outcome: once or twice, his father and mother, both sisters, and his brothers survived.
    But Josh knew this wasn’t a dream. These weren’t the two people who’d chased him when he was ten, and he wasn’t able to end this ordeal simply by screaming and opening his eyes. He had to escape. He had to run !
    He bolted forward, tripping over the rocks, bouncing against a boulder that came to his waist and then rebounding against a thick tree trunk. Somehow he stayed on his feet, still moving. There were shouts, calls, behind him.
    Panic raged through him like a river over a falls. He threw his hands out, as if he might push the jungle away. A tree loomed on his right. He ducked to his left, hit a slimmer tree, kept going. He pushed through a bush that came to his chest.
    More bullets.
    A stitch deepened in his side. His chest tightened, and he tasted blood in his mouth. The trees thinned again, and he was running over rocks.

    Run, his legs told his chest, told his arms, told his brain.
    Run!
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    Sergeant Fan had fired the shot that had sent their quarry racing away. Jing Yo yelled at him, calling him an idiot, but then immediately regretted it. Upbraiding an inferior before others, even one who deserved it as Fan did, was not his way.
    â€œDon’t let him escape,” said Jing Yo, springing after the runner. “But do not kill him either. We want to know what he knows.”
    The forest made it hard to run. Jing Yo realized this was a problem for the man they were pursuing as well as for them, and conserved his energy, moving just fast enough to keep up. Ai Gua and Private Po had moved to the flanks; they had good position on the man if he decided to double back.
    He wouldn’t. He was panicked, a hare