Marisol
Copyright© 2026 by Megumi Kashuahara
Chapter 12
Lan brought her back to the same building the following afternoon, and this time the back room wasn’t empty.
Six women sat or stood around a low table cluttered with tea glasses and a hand-drawn map weighted down at the corners with spent brass, and every one of them looked up when Marisol entered with the same unhurried, cataloging attention Lan herself had given her the day before — not hostile, but not yet willing to spend trust on a stranger either.
“This is Lieutenant Cortez,” Lan said, in Vietnamese first and then in English, a habit Marisol would come to understand was less about translation and more about giving each woman a chance to hear how the American responded to being discussed in a language she didn’t speak. “She will be working with us on the matter I mentioned.”
A tall, wiry woman near the map was the first to speak, her English quick and unpolished, clearly self-taught out of necessity rather than schooling.
“You’re the one with the rifle.” It wasn’t a question. “Lan says you can shoot a man from far enough away he doesn’t hear it until after he’s already dead.”
“That’s the general idea.”
“I’m Mai.” She didn’t offer a hand, only a short nod, appraising. “I go where the roads let me go. Markets, villages, checkpoints. If Gouyan moves, I’m usually the one who finds out first, three days after everyone else already stopped looking.”
Beside her, a smaller woman with a battered field radio balanced on her knees didn’t look up from adjusting a dial. “Hong,” she said simply. “Radio. Codes. If you ever need to talk to Lan from somewhere you shouldn’t be, it goes through me first.”
“Thu.” This one, seated closest to Marisol, had a nurse’s economy of movement that Marisol recognized instantly, professional to professional, and a canvas bag at her feet that Marisol suspected held field dressings rather than cosmetics. “Medic, mostly. I also sit in on the harder conversations, when people need convincing to say more than they intend to.”
“Interrogation,” Lan clarified, without softening the word.
“Oanh.” A striking woman near the door, dressed more like a market vendor than any of the others, offered the ghost of a smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “I recruit. I listen in places men don’t expect women to be listening. Half the girls selling fruit near the American compounds work for someone, Lieutenant. Sometimes that someone is me.”
“Hanh.” The woman who spoke next was built differently than the rest, solid through the shoulders in a way that suggested real strength rather than simple wiriness, and the weapon resting across her knees — an aging but well-maintained carbine — looked like an extension of her rather than borrowed equipment. “I carry the weight when weight needs carrying. Escorts. Extractions. If something goes wrong in the field, I’m the one deciding how we get out of it.”
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