White Jade (The PROJECT)

by Lukeman, Alex

  Sun shone through an East facing opening in the roof, painting the feet of the statue in a narrow patch of light.

  "I don't see anything except that statue." Nick set his pack down on the floor. The pain in his back had settled to a dull throbbing. He put it out of his mind.

  "There has to be a hidden entrance into the cavern below." Selena shone her light around the dark interior. "We should look for some irregularity in the walls, or maybe the floor."

  They began searching for something out of the ordinary. Nick inspected the base of the statue while Selena and Ronnie made a slow circuit of the walls. They covered the floor. Time passed. They didn't find anything. No hidden doors. No openings in the floor.

  The sun worked its way up the statue, illuminating the ancient carving. Suddenly the eyes of the garuda glinted golden as the sun struck them.

  "Why are the eyes shining like that?" Ronnie walked toward the statue and peered up at the bird's head. "It looks like they might be made of gold. I want a closer look." He climbed the back of the idol until he reached the level of the eyes.

  "What do you see?"

  "Pretty sure it's gold. Wait a minute. There's an opening here."

  He placed his flashlight behind the bird's head. Two intense streams of light beamed out of the golden eyes and illuminated one of the carved axes circling the room.

  "Look at that!" Nick said. "How did they get the light to focus like that?"

  "The vision of the great bird," Selena said.

  "You think it's that simple?"

  "I don't know."

  Ronnie climbed down and dusted himself off. They walked over to the wall and looked up at the labrys pinpointed by the eyes of the bird. It looked like all the others, one of many.

  "How do we get up there?" she asked.

  "I'll boost you up," Ronnie said. "See if there's anything unusual about that axe."

  Selena stood on his shoulders, bracing herself against the wall as Ronnie straightened. She played her light over the carving. She reached up and felt around it.

  "Nothing."

  "Try pushing it." She leaned into it with both hands.

  "I think it moved a little."

  "Push harder."

  She pushed. The carving slid into the wall, stone against stone. There was a harsh grinding sound. Something heavy moved and rumbled under the floor. The statue of the garuda turned in a ponderous half circle until it faced west. It hesitated, then moved forward along one of the channels, uncovering a dark opening in the center of the temple floor.

  Carter walked over and looked down into the opening. A narrow flight of stone steps descended into blackness. A stale odor of ancient dust and decay drifted up from below.

  "I'd say we just found the way in."

  Selena shuddered. "It reminds me of a bad dream I had once."

  "Do we have a choice about going down there?"

  "No, I guess not. What if that statue moves back and seals the entrance?"

  "If the entrance was closed they had to have some way to open it from below, or another exit."

  "Yeah," Ron said, "but this stuff is old. What if it doesn't work anymore?"

  "Then we'll blow it open." Nick patted his pack. He had enough C-4 to take out the entire temple.

  They started down the stairs. The steps were steep and narrow. They descended to whatever waited below. Black, cold rock absorbed the light.

  At the bottom they stepped onto a ledge hanging out over a bottomless abyss. To the left, a wide passage led into the mountain, cut straight and square and lined with white stone. Another labrys was carved over the opening. Wooden torches, long cold, jutted at intervals along the walls in heavy, dark brackets that might have been iron or blackened bronze. The business ends were tarred with a sticky, brown substance.

  "We might be able to use these," Carter said. He took out matches and pulled a torch from the wall. "Save the batteries."

  The torch lit easily. It burned bright and made little smoke. The light of the flames threw an eerie, flickering glow back from the white walls of the hallway. Nick handed it to Selena, took down two more. One for Ronnie, one for himself. He was about to start along the passage, but Selena stopped him.

  "This would be a good place for a trap."

  "Why?"

  "It's too easy. Anyone who made it past the statue and down the stairs would think the hard part was over. That's a good time to spring something."

  "What kind of trap?"

  "Spear traps were popular in the ancient world. You step on the trigger and a mechanism throws spears or arrows at you. Before you know what's happening, you're dead. Sometimes there's a false floor. It drops away and you land in a pit full of poison spikes or some other nasty surprise. Another trap makes something big and heavy fall on you or roll over you or seal you in somewhere. The Egyptians liked those. We'd be squashed like a bug."

  "What do you suggest?" He eyed the innocent looking corridor.

  "The spear traps should be relatively easy to spot. There have to be openings in the walls or the ceiling or even the floor, although they might be concealed. It's the floor traps or ceiling drops that worry me. If we can see a trap, we can probably trigger it or find a way through it. If not, we'd better be damn careful. Look out for ramps where something might come rolling down, or anything different about the walls or ceiling or floor."

  "You make it sound like walking through a 3D minefield."

  "That's a good way to think about it."

  They entered the passage. Puffs of white dust rose from their footsteps and Ronnie sneezed. It echoed down the ancient passage.

  Carter was strung tight. There was a sour taste in his mouth. This was Afghanistan all over again, except the enemy had been gone for thousands of years and the technology was from another time. It was old, but it could kill you as fast and as dead as anything from today's whiz-bang arsenals.

  They moved slowly, scanning the floor, ceiling and walls for signs of traps. Every fifty feet he lit a torch, trying to dispel the feeling he was walking in a dark dream.

  The passage curved. "Think we have a trap?" Ronnie said.

  Three skeletons lay on the floor ahead. Fragments of old cloth and leather hung from yellowed bones pierced by thin wooden spears. More spears lay scattered and splintered about. Those bones had been there a long time.

  Selena pointed at the walls on one side. "You can see the openings where the spears came out. They're all at knee height or above."

  "What set it off?" Ronnie got down on all fours and crawled closer. "If you look hard you can see a difference in the floor. There's a thin line in the mortar. I think they stepped on these stones and that did it."

  He lay down, reached forward and pressed on the floor. The stone moved. A half dozen sharp wooden shafts whistled out of the walls and splintered against the sides of the passageway. A flat, clacking noise came from behind the walls.

  Ronnie inched back. "Automatic feed and reload. Pretty slick."

  "If these two found their way in, how come the statue was still covering the entrance?" Selena asked Nick.

  "Maybe somebody put it back and left the bodies here as a warning. We'll worry about the statue later if we have to."

  They crawled under the kill zone and past the trap. They turned a corner. Ahead was a black opening and the end of the passage.

  "We're getting close." Nick gestured at the opening.

  He took two more steps and the floor fell away under his feet.

  Chapter Forty-One

  Elizabeth waved Zeke Jordan to a chair.

  "We've got Cathy Chen," he said. "She was booked out of LAX to Hong Kong."

  "Excellent. Where is she now?"

  "In Los Angeles. She doesn't deny she was at Nick's place. She says she came over to visit an old friend and that Nick and Doctor Connor were drunk and high on something. She claims Connor passed out on the couch and Nick made a grab at her, tripped over the coffee table and landed on the floor. She says she doesn't know anyt
hing about a computer and that she got out of there after Nick made the pass. She was going to Hong Kong on business. If she'd known we were looking for her she would have come in voluntarily."

  "Sure she would. What a story. Maybe a few days in isolation will help her memory."

  "That's the plan."

  "Are you any closer to identifying a possible informer?"

  Jordan looked unhappy. "We do have someone. We're watching him to see if he makes any contacts. He's put aside a lot of money in an offshore account. I hate to admit it, but you were right."

  "When are you going to drop the hammer?"

  "As soon as we can tie him to the Chinese. Until then we're monitoring everything he does." Jordan tugged at his collar. "Is there anything new on the book or why the Chinese want it so badly?"

  "You're sure this person is the one who tipped off Wu?"

  "Why do I get the feeling you haven't told me everything, Director? Yes, I'm sure. This is our guy."

  "I didn't want to brief you until you found the mole. We think we know why Yang wants the book. It might have the location of a new source of raw materials for China's nukes program. We're working to stop him."

  Elizabeth didn't think Jordan needed to know they were working on stopping him in Tibet. She twirled her pen.

  "We're certain Yang is planning a coup and that he's going to use the Triads to initiate attacks here when he makes his move. We think it's set for the Fourth."

  Jordan was shocked. "That's only two days away."

  "I convinced Homeland Security something was up. I'm not getting any cooperation from State, so that part is going to have to take care of itself."

  "Two days isn't much time."

  "Our indicators point to something in the Bay Area. That's the best place to focus resources."

  Jordan rubbed his nose. "I'm going to have a hard time getting the Bureau to believe the Triads are moving into terrorist activity instead of another criminal enterprise. It's not part of their pattern."

  Harker tapped her pen on her desk, thinking. Jordan watched her.

  "Maybe we should let Yang know we're on to him. What do you think? He might reconsider his options, give us more time to expose him. We could use your informer. He could learn we're on to the threat. Then he'd try to contact Wu or Yang. It would kill two birds with the same stone. Yang would know we're prepared and maybe call it off. You'd catch your mole in the act and take him down."

  Jordan smiled. "I like it. Even if Yang goes ahead, it should rattle his cage. People make mistakes when they get rattled."

  "Then we're agreed. You let your mole in on our suspicion of a domestic attack tied to a plot to take over China. He doesn't need to know where the information comes from. Let him pass it along and then bust him. That ought to give more weight to your argument with the Bureau for an all out focus on July Fourth."

  "Three birds with one stone."

  "We don't have a lot of time."

  Jordan stood up. "Then I'd better get on it."

  After Jordan left, she brought up the satellite over Tibet. Nick hadn't checked in. If they were underground there was no way to send a signal. She was more concerned about the Chinese.

  When the image came up she knew her concerns were real. It was nighttime again on the Tibetan Plateau. Heading toward Moincer was a convoy of four vehicles. They were some distance away, but that many vehicles all at once meant Chinese military. She tried the comm link with no response from the team. She had no choice but to wait for things to play out.

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Carter felt the stones tremble under his feet and jumped forward with everything he had. He heard Selena shout his name behind him. Pain shot up his spine. The floor fell away into a gaping pit. He caught the far edge of the opening with one hand, grabbed hard with the other and hung on, feet dangling. A cloud of white dust rose around him. He looked down. Twenty feet below, rows of sharpened wooden spikes reached for him like a mouth full of hungry fangs.

  The walls of the pit were smooth. He hung above the spikes until he could get his arms over the edge of the opening and pull out to lie on the floor. He lay on his back and took a few, deep breaths, waiting for the pain to subside.

  "You all right, Nick?" It was Ronnie.

  "Yeah." He got to his feet, heart pounding. His back was bad, but if he kept moving, maybe it wouldn't lock up. He popped another pain pill and hoped it had some kind of muscle relaxant in it.

  "Throw me a rope."

  Ronnie tossed a line over and Nick tied it off on one of the torch brackets. Ronnie did the same. Selena and Ronnie went hand over hand until they dropped down on the other side of the pit.

  "That was a hell of a jump." Ronnie slapped him on the shoulder. Nick winced.

  "I felt it move just before it went. I hope that's the last of these things."

  Another fifty yards of creeping along and the passage opened into blackness. They stepped through. Something glittered in the light of their torches.

  They were in a chamber hollowed out from the heart of the mountain. They stood on a floor of smooth stone squares fitted together by a master mason. A broad flight of steps led up to a flat, raised platform. The other end of the platform was invisible in the darkness.

  The torches cast shadows from columns spaced along the steps and the sides of the platform. Each column was elaborately carved with entwined serpents and vines. On top of each was a large, golden bowl.

  "We need more light. Let's set up on the platform."

  They walked across the stone floor and started up the steps.

  The bowls were just above eye level. On a hunch, Nick dipped his finger into one. It was filled with some kind of oil. With a touch of his torch a burst of light and flame pushed the dark away. They moved up the steps and along the side of the platform, lighting the bowls. On the far end of the platform more steps led up to the entrance of a low, square building cut into the side of the mountain.

  They stopped and stared.

  In the light from the blazing bowls a soaring, giant bird spread wings of gold above the building. Upon its back rode a frightening figure sculpted of red stone. His head was two-faced, cheeks dripping with gold like melted butter, his four eyes black and burning. Seven tongues of flame licked out between sharpened golden teeth. His expression was fierce, his hair long, black and tangled, as if by a wild wind. He had seven arms circled with gold bracelets and three legs banded with blue stones set in gold. A necklace of golden skulls circled his neck. Seven broad rays of gold streamed like lightning from his body.

  Beneath the bird, a frieze of double-headed golden axes capped the entrance to the building below.

  The gold shone in the flickering light.

  "That's Agni," said Selena, "riding the garuda." Her voice was filled with awe.

  "Who's Agni?" Carter asked.

  "He's one of the two most important Vedic gods, before Hinduism, very old. He's the god of fire and immortality. Usually he's riding on the back of a ram or in a chariot. I've never seen him riding a garuda. This is a really early depiction."

  "That's a lot of gold up there." Ronnie gazed at the figure.

  "Is that a ruby in one of his hands? It's as big as a baseball." Carter couldn't take it all in at once. He'd never seen anything like it.

  "I think so, and those blue stones are probably sapphires." She turned in a circle. "Look at the walls!"

  The flames illuminated murals in brilliant color circling the room. Beneath the pictures, the walls were filled with writing and symbols. The murals looked as if they had been painted just days before.

  Selena walked down the steps and over to a mural next to the entrance. Holding her torch close, she examined the writing.

  "My God. This is Linear A. It's written in Minoan. And beneath it." She stopped dead in her tracks.

  "Beneath it, what?"

  "Beneath it are passages in Sanskrit."

  Carter walked over to her. "Can you read it?"

  "I can read the Sans
krit. If the Sanskrit is telling the same story as the Linear A, it's the greatest linguistic discovery since the Rosetta Stone."

  "That's what led to the translation of Egyptian hieroglyphics."

  "Yes. No one's been able to really understand Linear A. There are theories, but none of them work all the time. It's mostly guesswork. That's what I was doing."

  "It looks like pitchforks and chicken tracks."

  Selena ignored Ronnie's comment. "This is a dream for me. I've been studying dead languages for years. If this is what I think, it will make history."

  She held her torch high and gazed at the mural above the writing. It showed a tranquil harbor scene, sunlit buildings against an azure sky, white clouds, ships with high, curved ends, people bustling near the docks. The details were vivid, lifelike. Nick could almost feel the trees swaying in an ocean breeze.

  "I think this is ancient Crete." Her voice was reverent. "This must be the harbor at Knossos."

  They moved along the wall. Men in orange robes gestured before a bearded man on a raised throne. To one side of the throne a group of women dressed in white stood watching. One woman wore blue.

  "King Minos?"

  "Possible. The Sanskrit says they are presenting a warning to the 'Great King.' This is probably the palace at Knossos. Do you know what this means in the world of archaeology? It's like finding photographs of 1600 B.C."

  The King didn't look pleased. Whatever the priests were telling him, he wasn't happy about it.

  The sequence of murals grew dark. While children played on the beaches, a malignant, towering green wave bore down on the island. A seething, foaming wall of water crashed over the city, smashing trees, boats, people and buildings against the hills. Then came a narrow band painted black, as if the artist could not bear to show the destruction.

  The next panel showed three sailing ships with high curved ends, plowing across a churning, wave-tossed sea under a smoky red and black sky. Standing on the decks were more of the robed figures in orange and white.

  The scenes continued along the wall. A landing site under a blood-red sun. A long, overland journey through desert and plain, bearers loaded down with boxes and burdens, climbing toward snowcapped mountains in the distance.