Mai watched the divers adjusting their facemasks and gave a thumbs-up signal for their first dive ... He glanced at his nephew sitting behind the winch. "Are you okay?" "Sorry, Uncle, but I can't help being a little nervous." "Only another hour or so. Nothing can go wrong now."
Don't bet on it.
There already have been so many twists and turns in this story that it's hard to guess what might happen next. The only certainty is that you won't be able to stop reading until you reach the dramatic climax.
A bit of history: During the war, joint Army-Navy crews operated patrol boats along the myriad of rivers and canals that wander through the Mekong Delta, the rice basket of southern Vietnam. As you might suspect, heavier vegetation grew along the waterways, so National Liberation Front (Vietcong) fighters used them to conceal their movements.
