Nita had been so angry when she’d found out what he’d done. “They were acquitted, Shiva!” she’d told him. “You can’t just take the law into your own hands!”

Her reaction still stung. But what choice did he have? To let ignorant savages kill his people with impunity? To let them murder children under his protection, and then face no consequences? He felt the old anger rising. Those monsters deserved worse, far worse than the fate he’d given them. Why couldn’t Nita understand the steps he had to take to forge a better world?

Shiva felt the slate starting to buckle as his hands clenched of their own accord around it. He took a breath to push the memory away, relaxed his superhuman grip, and handed the device back to Ashok. These special children were his wards. Their safety was his paramount concern. The Americans viewed them as monsters, as inhuman. He knew all about their attempts at finding a vaccine against Nexus, at finding a “cure” to force it out of the brain involuntarily. He knew their plans for “residence centers” to imprison this new subspecies they feared. If the Americans were trying to find where he was taking the children…

“Take her,” he told his VP of Ops. “Do it quietly. Find out what she knows, and who sent her.”

Ashok nodded, and turned to go.

Shiva spoke one more time. “Ashok, one more thing. I’m going to Vietnam. And I’m taking one of your squads with me. It’s time I found this Kaden Lane.”

Chapter 23: Cat and Mouse

23

CAT AND MOUSE

Sunday October 21st

Saigon – Vietnam’s beating heart of commerce and culture and vice. Still officially known as Hồ Chí Minh City, it was universally referred to by its older, pre-unification name. It was a place Kade and Feng hoped they could blend in, lose themselves among the tourists and expats from all over the world, rather than risking the lives of more monks.

They had some money. A grateful father in Cambodia had sought them out at a monastery, pressed a thick bundle of bills into Kade’s hand, thanked him for the work that had pulled his daughter out of a coma. Kade had tried to refuse, but the father would hear none of it. Kade tried later to give it to the monastery, but Feng had insisted he keep the gift, just in case.

Feng drove them through the night now, south and east again, risking the main highways this time, opting for speed.

They reached Saigon mid-morning. Feng parked the jeep in a storage lot in the outskirts. They strapped their packs on their backs, and took a bus towards Bến Thành Market and the tourist hub of the city – just another pair of backpackers exploring what Vietnam had to offer.