The Italian Mission

by Alan Champorcher

  Mobley’s voice calmed down, the pitch descending half a tone. “The White House wants us to back off.”

  “The White House?”

  “Ellis, the dipshit three-star who runs the National Security Council staff — guy thinks he’s Rambo.”

  “Why?”

  “Don’t know. Something’s going on they’re not telling me about.”

  “What should we do?”

  “Good question. Can’t give him to the Chinese without the White House going ballistic. But I’m not backing off no matter what that NSC gorilla says. Stay there and monitor the situation until I find out who’s playing who.”

  “We can try. But there are spooks with guns running around these woods.”

  “Try to get him into that monastery, or whatever it is. But don’t let him near any computers.”

  Conti came sliding back down the gravel trail fifteen minutes later. “I think he’s the Panchen Lama alright. But he’s not what I expected.”

  “Let me guess,” Cadiz offered. “He’s not political. Not interested in starting a revolution in Tibet. Doesn’t want to be a monk. Doesn’t know who arranged his escape. Wants to be an actor in L.A. or something.”

  “Not bad. Four out of five. He wants to be an artist in New York. How’d you know?”

  “Elementary. The Chinese have had him for twenty-five years. If they have any sense, they’ve treated him well and educated him to believe that religion, and Tibetan Buddhism in particular, is an oppressive feudal system designed to keep the peasants in thrall to the monks. Ergo, he would think that being the Panchen Lama is absurd at best and villainous at worst.”

  “Then why bother to escape from China?” Jill asked.

  “Freedom,” Cadiz answered simply.

  “That’s what he said.” Conti took the half energy bar that Jill offered and struggled to bite into it. “God! What is this stuff?”

  “I spoke to Mobley,” Jill said. “He wants us to play for time. Doesn’t want us to hand the Lama over to the Chinese or take him into custody ourselves. Seems he’s arguing with some national security folks at the White House over what to do next.”

  “Right,” Conti answered. “We’ll sit here in the woods, getting eaten by mosquitoes,” he slapped at his forearm, “and maybe getting our asses shot off while we wait for Washington to get its act together. Typical. What do you think, Rabbi?”

  “Me? What should I think? If I were making the decisions here, I’d probably arrange a meeting with the Chinese and talk it through with them. We Israelis are always looking for stability. We don’t upset things unnecessarily. Too much to lose. But I’m not making the decisions. You are. My orders are to stick with you and help you out.”

  “And keep an eye on us.”

  The Rabbi shrugged. “If you aren’t in a position to negotiate with the Chinese, then we need to get out of these woods as soon as possible. Before morning. Jill is right. There are men with guns out there. When the sun comes up, they’ll be beating the bushes. So I’d suggest we get ourselves and the young Lama into that monastery before first light. And, I agree with your boss. Keep him away from computers. Even his picture on the Internet could cause riots.”

  The three of them made their way up the dry creek bed until they came upon the two old monks and the young man leaning against an embankment, wide eyes scanning the dim woods. They’d packed their few possessions, having come to the same conclusion about the folly of staying still, and were ready to move. The six of them began climbing the steep hill toward the Abbey, accompanied only by the sounds of labored breathing and sandals scraping on loose pebbles. Within half an hour they emerged into a moonlit vineyard, the sweet tang of ripening grapes permeating the night air. Rows of vines six feet tall ran uphill, providing cover as they crept the last quarter mile toward the rough-hewn stone walls of the old castle.

  “Stop!”

  Two men stepped out of the shadows of the vines and into the moonlight. They pointed rifles menacingly at the small party.

  “Take off your packs and drop them!” one of them ordered, first in English, then more angrily, in Chinese. The other man pointed a powerful flashlight at each of them in turn, muttering in low tones as he did so. After surveying each face, he aimed the beam at the Panchen Lama. The second Chinese agent collared the young man and dragged him back to his partner.

  Conti eyed the pack that Cadiz had dropped at his feet. Was the Uzi at the top? Was it loaded? If he dove for it would he be able to shoot before they did? He began inching toward the Rabbi, who had been walking a few steps in front of him. One more step …

  “Back! Get back!” the first Chinese ran forward, shoved Conti roughly and picked up the Rabbi’s pack. He opened it and, with a look of triumph, pulled out the Uzi. “Stay there!” He waved his rifle at the hikers, and holding the Uzi in his other hand, backed up toward his partner.

  “Now, sit!” the first Chinese man commanded. They did so. “You will stay here. We have two comrades stationed where you cannot see them. If you move, they will kill you. Stay here until the sun rises. Or you will all die.” The two Chinese agents ducked into the vines and disappeared, pushing the Panchen Lama in front of them.

  “Do you believe them?” Jill was the first to speak.

  “No,” Conti answered. “They’re bluffing. I’m going to follow them. You all stay here.” He got up and started in the direction the Chinese had taken, keeping his head low.

  “I’ll go with you,” the Rabbi said, following Conti into the vines before anyone could object.

  The three who remained sat staring at each other, wondering what to do next.

  “I’d guess we’d better wait …” Jill began.

  She was interrupted by a burst of gunshots from the hill to the right, the sound echoing off the stone walls of the castle, and dying into the silence of the valley below them.

  17.

  CIA Headquarters, Langley, Tuesday Evening

  Mobley sat at a corner table in the cafeteria chewing morosely on a piece of overcooked halibut. He hated fish, but his doctor limited him to red meat twice a week, and he didn’t intend to waste it on a steam table hamburger. Pushing the cold peas around with his fork, he considered taking another bite, then decided it wasn’t worth it. He sighed as he watched his Congressional Liaison McCullough saunter toward him, stopping every few tables to bestow a pat on the back to someone trying to choke down a late dinner.

  “Well, if it isn’t the Director himself eatin’ with the plebs. What’s goin’ on, Your Honor? The Post here to do another profile?”

  Mobley grimaced. “Just looking for a bit of peace and quiet.” He crumpled up his paper napkin and wedged it under the edge of his plate. “But I can see that’s not in the cards.”

  “Don’t mind if I take a load off, do ya’?” McCullough had scrunched his large body into a chrome and plastic chair before he’d finished the sentence. “My friends on the Hill have been trying to reach you all day. Your assistant won’t give them the time of day. They’re upset.”

  “Christ. I talked to everyone on the Intel committee last night. What do they want? Hourly updates?”

  “Sometimes.” McCullough pulled out a pack of Camels, knocked out a cigarette, and lit it, violating the “No Smoking” sign on the wall directly behind Mobley. He took a deep drag and blew the smoke out of the corner of his mouth. “Yeah, sometimes they do. Especially when they’re getting calls from their top money men complainin’ about how they’re going to lose Chinese business if we don’t cooperate. You know, the Chinks are almost as good at manipulating our fine democratic system as the defense industry is.” He leaned forward and knocked the ashes from the end of his cigarette onto Mobley’s tray.

  “I am aware of that.” Mobley sat back in his chair and folded his arms on his chest. “I used to be in that game myself, you may recall.”

  “I do indeed. I was just a young press guy in your day, but I remember you had an unerring sense of the needs of your state. You neve
r ignored the pleas of your better-heeled constituents.”

  McCullough leaned back himself and crossed a tasseled loafer over his sharply creased slacks. In this pose, his southern accent somehow became even more pronounced. “So … what ya’ plannin’ to do here? Inquirin’ minds wanta know.”

  “Can you keep a secret?” Mobley said this with a straight face, conveying the sarcasm without changing his tone. He didn’t wait for a reply. “I’m not ‘plannin’ anything right now, because the national security bastards at the White House are interfering. If I had a plan, it would be to catch this monk — we’ve verified that he’s the Panchen Lama — and make a deal with the Chinese to give him back. My own preference would be to trade him for permission to build a big Coca-Cola plant somewhere near Beijing, but I’m open to other ideas. Maybe we could get something for one of your pals on the Hill. But I can’t get anything for anybody as long as General Rambo over at the White House has the President’s ear.”

  “What’s his game?”

  “Evidently, he wants to tweak China’s nose for some reason.”

  “If he does, he’s playin’ with fire.”

  “No shit.”

  “What’s his background?”

  “You don’t know? If you’re going to be any good at this game, you’re going to have to do your homework a lot better, son. Special Forces. Killed terrorists in Iraq and Afghanistan. With his bare hands, they say. Made his whole career chasing down the Taliban. No experience in the Far East. Doesn’t know Tibet from Nepal. Very ambitious though.”

  McCullough untangled his legs and leaned forward, brushing ash from the lapel of his linen blazer. His accent shifted back from Dallas to Princeton. “How can I help?”

  “Tell those Senator buddies of yours to stop wasting time calling me and start calling the President.”

  Mobley hadn’t been back in his office for an hour when his assistant buzzed him on the old-fashioned intercom he insisted on using. “White House on the phone. President’s Chief of Staff.”

  “Put him through.”

  “You son of a bitch, Mobley. Why’d you sic those Senators on me?”

  Mobley was unmoved. “Why won’t you let the CIA do its job?”

  The voice on the other end of the line became defensive. “Nobody’s stopping you from doing your fucking job. You sit on the National Security Council, right? You’ve got a vote like anyone else.”

  “A vote?” Mobley didn’t try to hide his frustration. “On what? A committee of soldiers and satellite jockeys. Not one of them knows a damn thing about politics. And all I get is a vote?”

  “I didn’t set the system up.”

  “I’m not waiting for the next NSC meeting to find out what’s going on. What’s General Ellis up to?”

  “He says he needs time.”

  “Look, he’s messing with the Chinese. Did anyone bother to tell him that they own more than a trillion dollars of American debt? Or that a dozen American companies are bidding on huge Chinese contracts? Does he understand that we need them more than they need us?”

  “All he wants is a couple of days.”

  “To do what?”

  After a long hesitation, the answer came in almost a whisper. “I’m not entirely sure. He talked to the President. I wasn’t in the meeting myself. You’re the Director of the CIA. Ask the boss yourself.”

  “He won’t take my fucking calls.”

  18.

  Via Francigena, Outside Mitri Abbey, Early Wednesday Morning

  Jill crashed through the wall of leaves in the direction Conti and Cadiz had gone, barely missing the horizontal wires supporting the vines. She stumbled on the clumps of earth hidden in the moon shadows on the other side, but Tenyal, the old monk, caught her as she fell. He turned her toward him and held his face close, forcing her to focus on his eyes.

  “Now is the time for calm. Not for rushing into unknown situation. Whatever has happened, we can only make it worse if we panic.”

  “Yes. Right,” she said, distracted, looking back over her shoulder.

  “Let us go carefully. Tashi will lead us. He has excellent vision.”

  Slowing down, they moved perpendicularly across the rows of vines, staying low. Jill followed close behind Tashi, the other monk, who held back branches allowing her to pass unscathed. They continued their wary progress through several rows, pausing to listen after each. Nothing. Finally, after half a dozen rows, a shock — three lifeless shapes on the ground. Jill stood back, her heart pounding in her temples. The two monks looked at each other, then Tashi moved toward the first bundle of clothing. He touched it first with his foot, then kneeled down and turned the body over.

  “Chinese.”

  He stood up and walked the few steps over to the next body. Again, he knelt beside it and turned it over.

  “Also Chinese.”

  The third body was lying face up. Tashi shined a flashlight on its face.

  “Caucasian.”

  Jill felt her knees buckle.

  “But not your friend.”

  She exhaled a chest full of stale carbon dioxide, then moved near the body and bent over it. Caucasian, alright. Crew cut, black nylon jacket over a Kevlar vest. She checked his pockets. A piano wire garrote and a heavy duty Motorola phone. She tried to turn it on. No dice. It needed a code. Tashi pointed to something a few feet from the body. A gun. She picked it up. “Vektor” stamped on the barrel. She didn’t know much about guns, but she was a whiz at languages. Afrikaans. So now South African blood had been spilled, too. She rolled the body over and examined the face — not one of her tormentors from the Quonset hut.

  It didn’t take long to find out which way the survivors of the battle had gone. Someone had ripped or cut a hole through the trellis of vines on the downhill side, away from the Abbey. They followed the trail pressed by several pairs of boots in the soft, pillowed earth between the rows. In a few minutes, they found what they were looking for. Cadiz sat on a mound of dirt with his pant leg rolled up; Conti was applying a tourniquet just below the knee.

  “What happened?” Jill asked.

  Conti glanced up at her, then continued his first aid. “Not exactly sure.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “We were getting close to the Chinese. We could hear them bullying the boy forward. Apparently he was making it difficult, refusing to go along. There were gunshots. We ran in that direction until we stumbled on the bodies on the ground.”

  “What about you, Rabbi? You O.K.?”

  “It’s nothing. I’ve had mosquito bites worse than this. Bullet just grazed my calf. I told John to keep going, but he wouldn’t leave me.”

  “Didn’t want to get into trouble with God.” Conti finished tying off the bandage and stood up.

  “I would have spoken to Him on your behalf.”

  Tenyal brought them back to reality. “But where is the Panchen Lama?”

  “He’s not with the Chinese,” Conti said. “There were only two of them and they’re dead.”

  “So he’s with the South Africans?” Jill asked.

  “Don’t think so,” Conti replied. “Before the Rabbi was hit, we were closing in on the second South African.”

  “And?”

  “We got close enough to see that he was alone.”

  19.

  Via Francigena, Wednesday Dawn

  A faint pink glow suffused the eastern hills as the bedraggled party limped up the gravel drive leading to the main gate of Mitri Abbey.

  “The castle was built in the fourteenth century,” Rabbi Cadiz instructed. “But the site is much older. You see the bottom courses of the wall? How they look more worn? This was originally an Etruscan village wall. Probably four thousand years old.”

  Everyone looked, but was too tired to comment. They’d spent the last hour bushwhacking through the dense forest and climbing up the steep trail. Exhausted and hungry, they knocked on the monastery’s heavy wooden door.

  “Christ, it’s cold.” Jill said. />
  “Yeah, the wind hits you when you come out of the trees. Maybe fall is coming early. I hope the monks are up.”

  “They have been up since three a.m.,” Tenyal said. “They’ve already meditated for two hours and should be finishing breakfast now.”

  “I hope there’s something left,” the Rabbi said, his hands stuffed deep into his pockets. “I’m starving.”

  As he spoke, the great door swung open. Tenyal stepped forward, bowed to the monk who’d opened the door and spoke briefly in Tibetan.

  “He says we may come in, but that the abbot is busy and cannot see us for a half-hour or so. In the meantime, we can wait in the refectory.”

  “Refectory sounds great,” the Rabbi said.

  Five minutes later, they sat drinking tea at an ancient, scarred oak table in front of roaring fire. A monk brought a tray of stuffed dumplings and the conversation paused as they dug in.

  “I’m never leaving,” Jill said between bites. “I think we’ve found heaven.”

  “Buddhists do not believe in heaven. Like the Jews,” the Rabbi said. “Or, more properly, it is to be found inside you. Am I right, Rinpoche?” he addressed Tenyal using the Tibetan honorific for teacher.

  “Heaven, enlightenment, inner peace. It’s much the same isn’t it?” the old monk said. He gestured toward the food and the fire. “Still, this must be close to the experience, I think.”

  “Wherever we are, I hope the Panchen Lama is here too,” Jill offered. “I’m not particularly interested in chasing around these hills again.”

  “I am confident he’s here,” Tenyal said. “Where else would he go? I asked the gatekeeper about it, but he said talk to the abbot. That is the way Buddhist monasteries function. Only the abbot communicates with the outside world on matters of importance.”

  A short time later, they were shown into the abbot’s office. A relatively young man, no more than thirty-five, sat behind a large, western style desk. His head was shaved but he wore a yellow hoodie with “UCLA” emblazoned across the chest in large purple letters.