The Chinese Agenda

by Joe Poyer

  Gillon nodded doubtfully. 'I'll take your word for it. We'll use three to be certain and connect them with a fuse. What kind of igniters do you have?'

  Andre reached into his parka and pulled out a hand-

  ful of metal tubes, pointed at one end, with a terminal at the other to attach the leads.

  `They are very sensitive and can be ignited electrically by screwing the lead into the bulb socket of a flashlight.' 'Clever.'

  'All right then, take what you have to and get going,' Jones ordered. 'You should be able to reach the pass well ahead of the Chinese. How about climbing the ridge?'

  Gillon thought for a moment, going over the shape of the north-western ridge in his mind.

  'There is a sharp hogback just above the pass,' he answered slowly. 'I think we can get up that way. If not, we can go straight up under the snow ledge. It's riskier that way, but it can be done.'

  He paused, loath to ask what he had to next, but there was no help for it. Ì'm going to need help. Rodek is exhausted and Leycock will be too tired to climb. I'll send him down as soon as we get up there. Stowe, you and Dmietriev will have to come with me.'

  Dmietriev nodded but Stowe started to shake his head, then changing his mind, shrugged and got up, walked over to his pack, pulled the carbine out of its case and slung it across his shoulders without a word.

  Gillon nodded approvingly. 'That's a good idea, just in case there is a surprise waiting for us. The moon should be up in a few hours, so we'll take the skis as well and on the way back, we can ski to the tree line.'

  He turned to Jones. 'If you hear the avalanche go, get Rodek up and be ready to go.'

  Jones nodded. 'All right. If you get back before dawn we should still be able to reach the rendezvous point by tomorrow night.'

  Gillon walked over to his pack, picked up his carbine and strapped his ski case on. With the snowshoes in one hand, he walked back over to where Jones stood beside Stowe's tent.

  'Look,' he said, keeping his yoke pitched low so that the others could not hear. 'There's no need to keep a guard now. You get back into your tent and sleep until Leycock gets back.'

  Jones shook his head and Gillon gave him a disgusted look.

  Àll right, Doctor,' he relented. 'Just be careful 'up there. And watch out for our independent friend. Don't take any nonsense from him. There just isn't room for two super chiefs on this crew.'

  'I don't intend to. He and I have had one set-to and if it comes to that, we'll have another.

  Sooner or later, he'll learn.'

  Jones clapped him on the shoulder and watched as they faded into the trees.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Night had clamped down heavily on the forest by the -time the three men moved out for the pass, each using his flashlight carefully to avoid stray flashes of light that might betray them to the aircraft they could hear droning above. The low-branched spruce trees with their short, stiff needles lashed at unwary faces in the misleading light from the torches, and Within minutes all three of them had pulled ski goggles and wind masks on for protection.

  It took them nearly three hours of heavy going in the darkness to break out of the trees.

  There, Gillon found that the sky had misted over, dimming the stars that ordinarily would have been bright enough to allow them to travel quickly over the open snow. But a high ice layer had moved in to suffuse and dim the starlight enough to mask uneven spots and

  -depressions in the snow, forcing them to a cautious pace. Here in the open they did not dare risk the use of flashlights.

  By 2200 hours, they were in sight of the top of the pass, which appeared as nothing more than a great blot in the blurred sheet of snow. Gillon stopped several hundred feet 'short of the summit and whistled softly. Receiving no reply, he whistled again. They glanced at one another. Dmietriev nodded and they separated to provide a more widely spaced target as they moved closer to the top of the pass. On the south side, the side from which they were approaching, the last several hundred yards were up a fairly steep incline and in the dim starlight it reared above them like a pale cliff. Gillon whistled again, his imagination pinpointing the spots on his body where Chinese carbines were zeroing in.

  This time Leycock heard them and whistled back. As they trudged the last few hundred feet to the summit, muscles screaming with the agony that Gillon had anticipated that morning, he stepped from the concealment of a snow bank and stood waiting for them.

  As they came level with him, Stowe curled his gloved hand around his flashlight and shone the yellowish beam into Leycock's face. Even in the misleading light, Gillon could clearly see that he was exhausted. His face was gray and pinched with the cold and he shivered uncontrollably. Together, they completed the last few paces to the top. Gillon and Stowe went forward a few more feet to examine the sweep of snow below for any sign of movement while Dmietriev questioned Leycock.

  There was nothing moving below as far as they could tell in the darkness, and they listened carefully as Ley-cock described his trek down the pass that morning and the long back trail that he had made before he stumbled onto the Chinese ski troops.

  `Where was that?' Dmietriev demanded.

  Leycock slung his carbine. 'About six miles below the pass. Rodek and I saw an aircraft, a two-engined transport, circling way off to the north. We guessed that it was about over the southern end of the plateau. It dipped down below the ridge and then we didn't see it again until it flew over that ridge just east of that peak over there.' He pointed into the gloom and added, `You can't see it now. Anyway, it looked like it was taking off, but we couldn't be sure. So we flipped a coin to see who went down to take a look. I lost.' He chuckled.

  `So then, I went straight down the pass after the aircraft disappeared and then to the left

  -into the trees along the west end of the glacier. It was a longer route, but I didn't want to stay in the open ... Anyway, about two hours after I started, I cleared a small ridge and spotted a line of troops heading in the direction of the

  lamasery. I wasn't sure about that; even with the glasses they were too far away.

  Anyway, I figured that they wouldn't find anything on either the plateau or at the lamasery and would make for the pass sooner or later. So I cut across that small valley at the north end of the glacier below the plateau and that's where I almost ran into them.

  There were about fifteen of them and I got out of there in one hell of a hurry.'

  Gillon dropped the glasses, letting them dangle on his chest. Rubbing his eyes against the bitter cold, he asked, 'What was the wind like up here today?'

  'The wind?' Leycock repeated stupidly. He massaged his face and took a deep breath. 'Oh

  . . . yeah, the wind. A good steady blow until about 1500. Then it died away to nothing.

  But I doubt if there are any tracks left to find, if that's what you're thinking. Anyway, I stayed well west of the trail that we took last night. Unless they are going to cross clear over, they won't find tracks, even if the wind left any to find.'

  'How many did you say?' Stowe asked.

  'I'd guess about fifteen altogether. I didn't stop to count them because they were strung out and I was worried that they might have some point men out that I hadn't spotted.'

  Gillon felt rather than saw Stowe nod in the darkness. 'Then we had better get busy on your damned avalanche,' he murmured, pulling back his parka cuff to peer at his watch. '

  It's going to be risky as hell since we don't know how many are out there.'

  'Have you seen anything since-you got back up here?' Gillon asked, ignoring Stowe.

  Leycock nodded. 'Just once at sunset. About two miles below the base of the pass. I saw them just after I reached the top and Rodek went down. It looked like they had stopped to eat, because I thought I saw a flashlight.'

  Gillon stared hard through the glasses once more but the darkness was so intense that they could have been a hundred yards from him and he wouldn't have seen them.

  Moonrise was still an
hour away and if Leycock was right, he estimated that it would be a close race between the moon and the Chinese troops. At best, they would have an hour of light in which to work. At worst, they would arrive together.

  Behind him he heard Leycock ask, 'What avalanche?'

  Stowe described what they had come to do and then in a brusque voice ordered, 'You had better get down below to the camp and get what sleep you can.'

  Gillon opened his mouth to protest, then thought better of it. There was just the faintest hint in Stowe's voice that he was expecting Gillon to disagree.

  "All right, get going then, and be careful,' he said. 'That overcast makes it damned hard to see.'

  Leycock nodded. 'If I wasn't so tired, I'd stay here with you .

  Gillon thought for a moment . . . there was a graceful way out, he thought, one that wouldn't give Stowe an opening.

  'Look, it would take you just as long to get back down to the camp if you started now in the dark as it would if you waited for moonrise. This overcast doesn't look like it is going to thicken any more than it already has, so why not stay here until then? You can spread your sleeping bag here and get some sleep.'

  Leycock agreed heartily. 'Great idea. I think I will. I don't fancy that stretch through the trees in the dark.'

  Abruptly Stowe turned away without a word and shrugged out of his pack. 'Let's get busy,' he snapped. Gillon smiled to himself and went to work.

  Fifteen minutes later, they had laid out and carefully fused the three charges of gelignite taken from Dmietriev's pack. He was worried about the length of wire they would need, but it was much safer and surer than using timed or burning fuses. Together, the three of them circled back down the pass several hundred yards, using their flashlights freely once they had dropped below the top. If there were any search aircraft still out in the overcast, they had had it, but Gillon judged that a lesser danger than a broken leg because of the darkness.

  They found that the northwestern ridge above the pass presented a long, gentle slope behind that enabled them to climb up almost to the overhanging snow ledge. They were completely shielded from the troops advancing up the far slope by the pass itself and Gillon did not hesitate to use his flashlight to study the final portion of the steep ascent.

  Òkay,' he said, 'let's go.' Occasionally, Gillon was forced to stop and cut steps into the steeper portions, but the ascent up the final portion of the eight-hundredfoot-high ridge was completed easily enough by the time the moon's upper edge began to show fuzzily over the eastern line of peaks. As they trudged forward across the top of the ridge, testing the snow's firmness with their axes, the sweep of moonlight seemed to precede them, changing the dull, frozen surface to a softly glowing opalescence as it drove through the high ice cloud.

  The snow ledge itself reared above them another two hundred feet and, as they climbed closer, Gillon spotted a jutting ledge of rock barely visible immediately below the base.

  The entire incredible weight of the snow mass rested its forward surface precariously on this thin rock outcropping. Above the ledge, the snow leaned out and over the five-hundred-foot or more drop to the northern slope of the pass. Gillon could picture the spring sun growing stronger and stronger until it melted away the underpinning and of its own accord, the immense tonnage of snow broke loose and roared down the pass to block it completely until at least early summer. Below the snow and the rock outcropping, a shelving snow-covered expanse of rock ran below the base of the snow mass from where they stood. Wider at their end, it sloped at a thirty-degree angle for fifty yards and then fell away abruptly to the pass.

  Gillon had Stowe and Dmietriev stop while they were well back on the ridge and he went forward carefully on snowshoes. He shuffled forward until he dared go no further, then turned to study the underpart of the snow ledge. It reared above him in the moonlight, a harsh white cliff now that the moon had risen high enough to clear the peaks. He could see where the snow rested on the rock and the wide melt channels that had already been carved by the sun. Two one-pound charges of gelignite equally spaced along the base of the ledge should certainly be enough to break it loose as one mass to bring it down into the pass. He would use three to be

  certain. The trick would be in getting in underneath to the rock ledge without triggering the avalanche. Fortunately, the intense night cold would help to stabilize the mass, although where the melt had run, the snow would be as slick as glass. Nevertheless, he thought, he should be able to reach it by climbing up the slope to the rock ledge. If he placed the charges well back into the snow, the rock ledge would lend added compression to the powerful explosive and muffle the sound until the snow was well on its way.

  But he did not like the look of the slope below his feet – the frozen melt water and the steepness of the runoff. He shrugged. There was nothing for it but to try. He turned carefully by shifting his snowshoes a few inches at a time and trudged back to where Stowe and Dmietriev waited for him.

  He chose Dmietriev to plant the first charge, the one nearest the ridge on which they stood, basing his decision on the fact that Dmietriev was several pounds lighter and had had more direct snow experience than Stowe. He gave Dmietriev careful instructions on how and where to plant the charge and then went to work to lay out his own climbing ropes, showing Stowe how to anchor the line with his ice ax.

  'Yeah, yeah,' Stowe nodded with a trace of impatience, but Gillon continued remorselessly until he was certain that Stowe understood exactly what he wanted. If he slipped, he would go straight over the rock ledge. There would be only the line and Stowe's strength to save him.

  Gillon led them both down to the start of the snow-field. He indicated a spot, well back from the start of the ledge, had Stowe anchor his ax, then looped the line around it once and tied a double bowline in the forward end, through which he slipped his legs, and took a turn around his waist, fastening it into a crude belt. He stepped out of the bindings and jammed his snowshoes upright into the snow.

  Stowe took his position behind the ax and began to pay out line as Gillon moved forward crabwise across the slope on his stomach, spreading his weight over as wide a surface as possible. After a few hundred feet, he risked a quick look behind to where Stowe and Dmietriev stood watching him. A trick of perspective seemed to curve the snowfield so that it appeared as if they were standing on the rim of a shallow bowl.

  It took Gillon fifteen minutes to cross the thousand or so feet to the rock ledge, using his ice ax to chop hand- and footholds in the icy surface. The snow melt was a greater problem than he expected. It must flood down from the snow during the brief warm period around noon, he thought, creating the damnable glassy smooth surface. Once it caused him to miss a handhold when his glove slipped, but he managed to lash out with the ax, levering his arm from the elbow, to smash the pick end through the crust. He rested for several minutes, waiting for his heartbeat and respiration to return to a more normal rate. When he continued the climb, it was at a slower pace, never shifting now until he was doubly sure that at least one foot and hand were both secure.

  The trip was not as bad as some rock climbs that he had made. The surface being more nearly horizontal relieved some of the tearing weight on his arms and the balls of his feet, but the icy wind that eddied about him, clutching and tearing with frozen, plucking fingers to drive the pain of restricted circulation into his extremities, was more severe than any he remembered.

  His ax finally struck rock after what seemed like an interminable period of climbing and he paused for a moment before pulling himself up the last few feet to the rock ledge.

  Then carefully, an inch at a time, he drew his feet up under him and, using the ice ax as a crutch, stood up.

  The rock ledge was only a few inches wide and the snow pack curved outward until, seven or eight feet above the ledge, it leaned beyond, forcing his head and shoulders outward as if trying to overbalance him. He was sure that he looked like some old-time movie hero stuck on the ledge of a skyscraper, Harold Lloyd perhaps;
only here, there was no window to duck into; only the thin nylon line that stretched behind him in a long curve to where Stowe knelt in the snow, keeping it taut. If he slipped or fell, he would slither two hundred feet in a long arc down the glassy snow pack and the jolt when he reached the end would not only break bones but would probably snatch the rope right out of Stowe's hands. Savagely, he thrust the thought from his mind and concentrated on inching along the ledge until he judged that he had reached the two-thirds point.

  The narrowness of the ledge posed yet another problem. It had widened for a space but then had narrowed again until he found that he could barely move a foot an inch at a time. He did not dare risk a look at his watch, but the steady climb of the moon above the peaks east told him that he was taking longer than he had reckoned. Unless he planted the charges, and soon, the soldiers would be over the pass.

  Abruptly, the rock ledge gave out and his foot tipped over into emptiness and he lost his balance. Gillon scrabbled hard at the icy surface, arching his back against the front of the snow pack until he could jam his ice ax to provide a tenuous hold. He rested a moment, gasping in the thin air until here gained his breath, and looked around. He was short by several hundred feet of the point where he had planned to lay his first charge. As well as he could reconstruct the face of the snow mass in his mind, he was sure that he was about two thirds of the way across. That was far enough, he decided, and backed up several steps to firmer ground. The narrowness of the ledge and the overhang of the snow pack made it impossible to swing the ice ax with enough force to carve out a hole for the charge. Swearing at the perversity of fate, he kicked what snow he could away from the base, an inch or so above the ledge, until he had a shallow hole. Carefully, he stooped down, clutching the handle of the ice ax. It would not hold him if he fell, he knew, but just holding onto something gave him a feeling of steadiness.