by Jon F. Merz
The flashlights switched off, the vehicle engine cranked, and then they roared away. We stayed down until the sounds of the engine died away. Then I heard Jack let out an audible sigh of relief.
Or maybe it was me.
The goal right then was to put as much distance between us and the base as possible. Every moment we stayed near the base, we ran a risk of being spotted by a roving patrol. As we made our way down the hill, I could see a battery of missiles stationed near the perimeter fence behind us. I’d heard rumors of the Chinese positioning missiles near the border with India, but they were apparently dotting them throughout Tibet as well.
Our footfalls were silent as we made our way out of the camp. A small road - if you could honestly call it that - ran north, and we took that, staying well off the packed gravel to avoid making any noise. With the stiff breezes blowing all around us, we could keep to the high grass and not worry about the swishing sound we made as we moved through it.
Within reason.
I smelled water on the air. We were probably close to a river of some sort. The mountains in this region ran fast with a variety of rivers and tributaries that looked more like capillaries on a map than they did actual rivers. Jack checked our position on the compass and saw we were still on a good course heading.
Then we heard more vehicles.
We ducked down in the grass and took turns scanning the area. I couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary, but we were hearing more and more vehicles now. That troubled me. I thought we’d just managed to clear the military base and yet, we seemed to be heading into a built-up area. Could it be a road? I didn’t know enough about the Lhasa area to be sure. If I’d had more time, I could have done research. But with Talya rotting away in some hellhole, the only thing I could do was rush forward.
Jack came over and cupped his hand to my ear. “Let me scout ahead.”
“You?”
He frowned at me. “You’re not the only one who can be quiet.”
“All right. I’ll stay here and keep a lookout. Don’t be long.”
“Ten minutes,” said Jack. “If I’m not back by then, come running.”
I smirked and watched as he dissolved into the shadows. I lost sight of him almost immediately, he was that good. It made me wonder exactly what they were teaching students at the Invoker school. Jack seemed to have a lot more talent than I gave him credit for.
I heard more vehicles in this distance. I hoped Jack hadn’t run into them, but I had to get used to letting him expose himself to risk. And he had to get used to operating in the real world.
When he reappeared five minutes later, I nearly screamed. The kid was good.
“It’s bad,” he said by way of greeting.
“How bad?”
“Follow me,” said Jack. We belly-crawled through the tall grass, twisting several times as Jack changed course. Eventually, he drew to a stop and motioned for me to come forward and join him. As I did so, I heard a tremendous roar from somewhere off in the distance. It was an engine of some sort. But I couldn’t figure out what it was.
The sound grew louder. Jack nodded up in the air and I saw the lights coming at us.
A plane.
And a big one at that.
It zoomed overhead and I felt the downdraft hit us. “Where’d it go?”
Jack pointed through the grass. “Right there.”
When I looked, I couldn’t believe it. There was a full sized airport in front of us. We might have been off the military base, but we’d just stumbled onto the main airport servicing Lhasa.
And that wasn’t good at all.
9
“This is what happens when we don’t prepare properly,” said Jack. There wasn’t an edge to his voice but I knew he was blaming me for the mixup. And he was right. If we’d had enough time, I could have put together a plan for properly inserting us into China. But there simply hadn’t been enough time. And frankly, if there was one time when flying by the seat of our pants might actually be a smart strategy, this was it. I told this to Jack, but he just frowned.
“Why?”
“Because if Xuan Xiang thinks we’d never attempt something this harebrained, then that’s exactly what we need to do. We need to go at him from the least likely scenario possible. He knows that I’m a professional and that I’d never do something like this because it goes against every trained instinct that I have.”
“And that’s why we’re doing it this way?”
“Yup. It’s basically the only way I think we can actually surprise him and get out of this alive.”
Jack sighed. “You realize this is completely insane.”
“I’d do anything for Talya. You know that. If that means being certifiably insane to get her out, then I have no problem with that label.”
Jack clapped me on the back. “I’m with you. I’m probably crazy for saying that, but I’m with you.”
“We have more immediate problems than the issue of where you and I will be committed.” I pointed at the airport. For a third world destination - hell, it could have been fourth world for all I knew - the airport bustled. I spotted buses, cars, trucks, military vehicles, and more. All of them roaring along, presumably headed north to Lhasa.
“We need a ride,” said Jack. “What are the odds that there’s a parking garage down there without security cameras?”
“Probably not good,” I said. But we didn’t have much choice but to take a look. We threaded our way down the slope and came to a gully running next to the service road that led to a squat gray concrete building roughly fifty meters from our location. Judging by the open partitions, it was a multi-level garage.
Jack eyed me. “Your call.”
“I’ll take it. If I get into trouble, then get yourself out of here. No sense in both of us spending the rest of our lives rotting in some Chinese jail.”
Jack shrugged. “Well, I’m sure we wouldn’t have long to wait. Once Xuan Xiang gets word that you’re here, he’d just kill us anyway.”
I pointed a finger at him. “It’s that optimistic outlook on life that I love so much about you, pal. Be back soon.” I slipped away and moved first to the right side of Jack before making my way up to the road. There were sodium lights positioned roughly every fifty meters and I wanted to be in the middle of them as much as possible. If I could avoid being seen in the glow of the lights, all the better.
By now, the garage was directly ahead of me. It was squat and ugly, but I didn’t think the Chinese were trying to win any design awards all the way at the top of the world. Mostly, they were trying to contain any insurgency by pleasing the local populace with a bunch of infrastructure projects. I had no idea if it was working or not.
I slid over the first wall and into the garage proper, huddling by the tire of an outdated Subaru that had been off-market in the States for at least twenty years. That was always the way: dump the outdated models in third world countries where the locals could keep them running for decades.
From my vantage point, I couldn’t see any cameras. That didn’t mean there weren’t any, it just meant I couldn’t see them. I wasn’t especially thrilled with not knowing if they were there or not, but beggars can’t be choosers. I stood and strolled up the ramp, trying to appear as nonchalant as possible. But being a westerner, it was tough. I didn’t exactly blend in with the indigenous population. If someone spotted me, it was likely going to cause an uproar.
The important thing right then was to find a car that looked like it had been left in long-term parking. I didn’t even know if they had such thing in Tibet, so I judged the duration by the amount of dust on the cars themselves. Again, not exactly an easy thing to do in a third world country where they don’t think about taking their BMWs to the car wash every freaking day.
On the third level, I spotted a possible candidate. An aged Toyota Camry with a bent radio antenna and a puke green paint finish winked at me from beneath a thick coating of dust and pollen. The radio antenna actually turned out to
be a wire coat hanger. As pleased as I was about finding a car we could steal, I was also struck by the fact that this was someone’s pride and joy and likely their only means of transportation. I didn’t have a choice, unfortunately. Even if I left a thick wad of cash behind, there was no guarantee that it would find the owner.
Who knew, maybe someday when the Chinese weren’t hunting my ass all over the world for what I was going to do up in Qinghai, maybe I’d come back and try to find the guy who got his car stolen at the airport.
Yeah, probably not.
I used my traveling lock picks to open the door and slide inside. It took me about three minutes getting the steering column off so I could expose the proper wires. I used one of the picks to bridge the gap and conduct the circuit so the engine cranked over. It sounded strong enough; I slammed the door shut, tried to use the wipers to clean some of the gunk off the windshield and then slid out of the space and down the ramp.
The sooner I got out of there, the better.
I exited the garage and swung right, slowing as I drove down the road next to the gully. With the doors unlocked, Jack had no trouble running and diving inside as I hardly slowed down. Then I put the pedal down and heard the engine crank up.
“Nice ride,” said Jack as he righted himself. “This thing got any windshield washer fluid in it?”
I flipped the switch but nothing came out. “Probably jammed full of dirt and grime.” A spurt of fluid came out and the wipers promptly turned the moisture into one gigantic smear that further reduced my ability to see out of the glass. “Perfect. That just made it even worse.”
Jack pointed. “There’s a river ahead. If we stop I can splash some all over it.”
“That’s the Yarlung Zangbo River. We’ll see if there’s a place to pull over. But the crossing is actually a tunnel that will dump us out on the other side.” We broke away from the airport road and merged onto Provincial Highway 101. Other cars passed us, but in the dim light, no one paid us any attention.
Jack shook his head. “Trying to drive at night with a windshield like this is suicide. We’ve got to get it cleaned.”
“Keep a lookout for a turn-off or some place I can idle while you get some water.”
“There,” said Jack.
I looked. The road eased into a long left turn, but the shoulder was wider at this point than it had been. Without thinking, I pulled over and slid us to a stop.
Jack looked in the back seat and whistled. “Perfect.” He held up an old styrofoam cup. “Be right back.” He ducked out of the car and slid down through the bushes toward the water. A minute later he came back and threw the contents of his cup across the windshield.
I worked the wipers and watched as the gunk started to dissipate. I was going to ask Jack to get another cup of water, but he’d already headed back for more. The second time he came back and threw the water on, the windshield cleared enough for me to see through.
I waved him in. “We’re good. Let’s get out of here.”
Jack jumped back in and we roared off. A quick check of the gas gauge told me I had almost a full tank. Knowing Toyotas, that meant I could probably cover a couple hundred miles before refueling. If we could get well north of Lhasa, the chances of us running into too many people were slight. And the less who saw us, the better.
“So, what’s the plan?” asked Jack.
“Get north of Lhasa before we take a break. We’ll hit Chinese military in Lhasa and on the outskirts, so the key is to put as much space between us as possible. Westerners traveling in this part of the world - especially driving a car - are going to stick out. I want us invisible.”
“Roger that,” said Jack. “We have enough gas?”
“I think so.” We drove across the Yaluzangbujiang Bridge and I took a moment to glance at the dark waters flowing beneath us. Every second we were in country, the odds continued to grow against us. And we weren’t leaving; we were only getting in deeper enemy territory. I had no resources I could call upon; no friends in this part of the world. Even the Council had no way of helping us if we suddenly found ourselves surrounded by Chinese tanks.
Not to mention the very fact I was risking both my neck and Jack’s to save a human was pretty much guaranteeing me a death sentence from the Council.
Fuck them.
We flashed across the bridge and then picked up the Airport Expressway. The signs were all in Chinese and English characters, which helped. I nudged Jack. “Bring up the GPS, will ya? I need to plot a course here.”
Jack took out his smartphone and punched in our approximate location. After a minute, he nodded. “We stay on this until the outskirts of Lhasa. Then we can take the Liuwu Tunnel to merge with the…G318 Highway. That goes around Lhasa and veers north to connect with the G109.” He looked up. “And it brings us right to Qinghai.”
“Any other routes?”
“Yeah, but they’ll take us through a lot more populated areas. I didn’t think you wanted that.”
“I don’t.”
“This way is probably a little longer, but the number of towns is about a third of what it would be if we went the other way. I think we should take it.”
I glanced at him. Somewhere along the way, Jack had grown up. I was feeling pretty grateful he was with me on this. “Okay. Can you calculate how long it will be?”
Jack shrugged. “Not really, but I can see what the map app says.” He punched in some data and then paused. “If I figured that right, we’re about two hundred miles from Qinghai’s border.”
“Crap. That’s a bit further than I wanted it to be.”
“No way we could have inserted closer, huh?”
I shook my head. “This was a gamble as it was. Bringing us in any deeper would have only added risk we don’t need. This way is harder, longer, and less likely. Your enemies always expect you to be lazy and take the road that’s easiest. That’s where they’ll concentrate their efforts on finding you or defending against an attack.”
“So we go the other way. The path of most resistance.”
“Yeah.” I gripped the steering wheel tighter, willing the miles to drop away faster than I had a right to.
“You realize that goes against the laws of nature, right? Everything follows the path of least resistance.”
I shook my head. “I was made for three things, Jack: fucking, killing, and not giving a shit about anybody’s rules but my own.”
10
The G109 was a fairly modern highway and I was grateful for that. Part of me expected it to be shit, like some gravel dirt track that just stretched for endless miles. That would have cost us in time and gas. But thanks to the Chinese invasion of 1950, Tibet had been fairly modernized in places. After all, you can’t necessarily roll a tank down a shit road and hope it doesn’t plummet off the edge into a chasm a thousand feet below. G109 was a perfect example of the improvements the Chinese had made over the last nearly 70 years. Steel reinforced highways brought a constant flow of goods and people from all over the region together.
We passed through a few towns, but they were unremarkable. I’d never been in this part of the world before, but frankly, if you’ve seen one third world dive, you’ve seen them all. They could have taken the towns we zipped through and stuck them anywhere on the map in another impoverished nation and you’d never know the difference except for the lettering of the local Pepsi signs. A simple water tower, a local bar, maybe some type of inn, and then a cluster of homes surrounding it. That’s just how it was: the basics of life were the same. Anything else was just gravy. We saw bicycles, mopeds, and an assortment of ancient looking cars. A double decker bus that looked like it had been dropped straight in from London lumbered past us with a few toots of a weird horn.
That was us in Tibet.
Jack slept a bit and offered to help with the driving, but I told him no. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust him; it was just that I trusted my instincts a bit more than his. He’d never been out in the cold before. I was so familiar wi
th it, I should have been wearing snow shoes.
After close to two hundred miles, we descended into a valley and I spotted a larger town in the distance. Jack was snoring next to me and I nudged him.
“What’s up?”
I pointed. “Got a town coming up a bit bigger than the others we’ve been going through. Wanna see where we’re at?”
Jack punched up his phone and after thirty seconds, looked over at me. “Says it’s Nagqu. Don’t think I’m pronouncing it correctly, though.”
“Okay. We’re going to need gas soon, too.”
Jack zoomed in on the map. “We get through this and it’s about sixty miles to the border of Qinghai. No other towns are showing up on this map, anyway.”
“Then you can bet that we’ll see Chinese military as we drive through. So the goal is going to be quick and fast without attracting any attention to ourselves. I’m betting Nagqu is where they go for time off, rather than any sort of security choke point.”
“Could be both,” Jack offered.
“True. But I’m an optimist.”
“You?” Jack smirked. “That could well be the funniest thing I’ve heard in a long time.”
“Thanks, I’m here all week.” As we progressed down the road, I spotted headlights coming the other way. “Keep your head down if you can.”
“What are you going to do?” asked Jack as he scrunched down in the seat.
“Nothing,” I said. “I’m just hoping they’re not military.”
They weren’t. As the Honda zipped past, I could make out three faces all too busy laughing about something to notice me and my pale complexion. I breathed a sigh of relief and then patted Jack on the shoulder. “Clear.”
He sat back up. “We can’t do that every time we see another car.”
“Got a better idea?”
Jack nodded. “We’ve got the Cloak. Let’s use that.”
I shook my head. “I’d like to, believe me. But we don’t know anything about it.”