High Priestess td-95

by Warren Murphy

  Thondup walked the halls, spinning the prayer wheels, hoping the gods heard his entreaties. Each squeaking seemed to say, "Banish the Chinese. Banish the Chinese. Return the Dalai."

  But the years had come and gone, and the Dalai remained in India. A good place. A holy place. But not his place. Hope was fading in the aging heart of Thondup Phintso, last abbot of the Potala.

  There were days when he would have been prepared to accept the guidance of the Panchen Lama, who, although a vassal of Beijing, was still of the faith. But the Panchen Lama had died of suspicious causes in Beijing. A heart attack was the stated cause. But his relatives and even advisers had all died of heart attacks within days of this calamity.

  Clearly Beijing had given up on that Panchen Lama. Now it was said that there was a new Panchen Lama. It would be many years until the new Panchen could be invested. More years, Thondup Phintso realized, than he had left in this life.

  So he spun his prayer wheels and hoped for a miracle.

  THE POUNDING on the great wooden entrance doors went almost unheard deep within the Potala. Yet it carried over the squeaking of the prayer wheels. The Chinese. Only the Chinese would pound on the hallowed doors like that. Only the Chinese would come in the middle of the night, with their uncouth accents and their impious demands.

  Gliding like a maroon wraith, Thondup Phintso passed toward the entrance and threw open the great red doors.

  He gasped at what his eyes drank in.

  It was a Mongol, wearing the peaked cap of his race. Over his shoulders was slung a body, sheathed in saffron. And standing at his side, a Korean, very old, with young commanding eyes of hazel.

  "Step aside, Priest," said the Mongol, gruffly pushing past. "Make way for the Master of Sinanju."

  Thondup Phintso recoiled. The Master of Sinanju! No Master of Sinanju had trod the dust of Tibet in generations.

  "What do you wish here? We are closed."

  "Sanctuary, Priest," said the Master of Sinanju.

  "The Chinese seek you?"

  "Not now. But soon."

  Thondup Phintso touched prayerful hands to his forehead. "Sanctuary is yours," he murmured.

  The Mongol spanked the backside of the figure slung over his broad shoulders and said, "Where can this one sleep?"

  Curious, Thondup Phintso craned his shaved head the better to see the insensate one's features. He caught a glimpse of shaggy hair dyed the hue of saffron and a face drained of healthful color. He blinked.

  "A white eyes?"

  "Restore your own eyes to your skull, Priest, and take us to the deepest, most secure room in this hovel," the Master of Sinanju ordered.

  "This is the Potala, and the safest place is the Dalai's own quarters. But it is forbidden for any but the Dalai to take residence there."

  The Mongol growled, "This is the Bunji Lama, pyedog!"

  "The Bunji!"

  "Quickly!"

  Hastily Thondup Phintso threw the great doors closed and, taking up a yak butter tallow, led the way. The Bunji Lama! The Bunji Lama was here. There had been rumors, but Thondup Phintso paid the prattling of women and the idle ones no heed. The Bunji! He could not refuse the Bunji anything.

  Not even, he thought to himself, if the Bunji did belong to the rival red-hat sect.

  Chapter 33

  The basalt black of the Tibetan night was shading to cobalt, and the snowcapped massifs of some unnamed mountain range were turning pink and orange with the rising sun when Remo Williams breasted the top of a rise. He stopped.

  Below, in a green valley, lay the concrete sprawl of a small Tibetan city. It filled the valley. There was no way around it unless he backtracked or took to the mountains on foot.

  It was not Lhasa. Lhasa, from what Remo had read of it, was a kind of Lamont Cranston Shangri-la. There was nothing of historical Tibet in the gray urban sprawl with its sheet-metal roofs and drab concrete uniformity below the mountains. Only the Chinese could have built such a cheerless place in the heart of the breathtaking Tibetan landscape.

  Remo was debating what to do when something whistled over his head. His Sinanju-trained senses, fixing the trajectory by its sound, told him he was not in danger. He didn't duck. He looked up.

  It was an arrow. A polished thing with a ravenfeather tail. The tip was not an arrowhead, but a perforated box. It whistled in flight.

  Remo backtracked its flight with searching eyes.

  A lone man stood on a cliff, looking down at him. Not Chinese. He looked vaguely Mongolian in his charcoal native costume. He wore an ornate teak box around his neck. And he lifted a hardwood bow high, as if in signal.

  Remo had seen too many cowboy movies not to expect what happened next. Stale human odors were also coming to his nostrils.

  On the hills surrounding him, a dozen or so similar figures came to their feet. They brandished bows, knives and oldfashioned rifles inlaid with silver and turquoise with fork rests made from antelope horns. They seemed to be waving to him, as if in warning.

  The click was soft but distinct as the jeep's right front tire ran over a soft spot in the road.

  Remo knew the sound, understood what it meant and threw himself forward and onto the engine hood. There was no time to brake. Not if he wanted to survive the next three seconds.

  There came a whump. The jeep bucked wildly, then slammed back to earth, flattening the three tires the erupting land mine hadn't shredded.

  The engine block had protected him from flying shrapnel. A cloud of acrid smoke and road dust mushroomed up, enveloping the jeep, now lurching toward the edge of the mountain pass.

  Remo sprang from the hood, landed, rolled and came to his feet in a graceful series of motions as the jeep careened off the side of the mountain. It bounced off a succession of boulders before it stopped. The gas tank exploded with a whoosh that singed the air.

  As the jeep crackled, tires melting, far below, Remo looked up. The Tibetans who had obviously planted the mine looked up and shrugged, as if to say, "We tried to warn you."

  Remo lifted his voice. He had nothing to lose. He was surrounded. "Chushi Gangdruk?"

  "Who you seek, chiling?"

  "Bumba Fun." Couldn't hurt to ask, Remo figured.

  "Which Bumba Fun?"

  "I'll take potluck."

  The Tibetan looked vacant.

  "Tell him Gonpo Jigme is looking for him."

  All around him, Tibetan faces broke apart in startlement. "You are Gonpo Jigme?"

  "Yeah."

  "We have heard you had come down from Mt. Kailas. Come, come."

  Remo started up the sheer rock face. It was the easiest and quickest way for him to reach the man. But the hardy Tibetans, no strangers to scaling mountains, were amazed by the ease with which Remo scaled sheer rock. He seemed to literally float up the rock face.

  Remo reached the man, who immediately prostrated himself on the ground. "I am Bumba Fun, O Protector of the Tent."

  "Call me Gonpo," said Remo. "All my friends do."

  The man got up. "We beg forgiveness for destroying your jeep, Gonpo. We recognized your white face too late to stop you except with our warning arrows."

  "I'm headed for Lhasa," Remo said. "I need to get there fast."

  "You go to cast out the Chinese enemies of the faith?"

  "I go to find the Bunji Lama and pull her chestnuts out of the fire," said Reno.

  "There are rumors the Bunji is in Lhasa, to be sure. We will take you through the city, but you must wear Khampa clothes."

  "Khampa clothes?"

  Bumba Fun struck his chest proudly. "We are Khampa. Fighters. Very fierce. Has Gonpo Jigme not heard of us?"

  "Gonpo Jigme hears many things, retains very few," Remo said dryly. He had to hurry this along. No telling how much trouble there was in Lhasa if Squirrelly and Chiun were at large up there.

  The other Khampas gathered around Remo and almost broke into knife fights over who would be privileged to donate articles of clothing to Gonpo Jigme. Remo settled it by saying
, "Everybody donate one item."

  So they started to fight over who would donate which item and which were of greater or lesser value.

  In the end Remo was wearing mismatched yak boots with upturned toes, sheepskin pants with the fleece turned inside out and a wool chuba. Someone gave him a silver-fox turban. Nothing exactly fit and everything smelled. Remo slapped his body here and there to kill the fleas. Then he was ready.

  "You take this," said Bumba Fun, removing the box on a cord around his neck.

  "Don't need it."

  "Charm box. Ward off Chinese bullets."

  "Gonpo Jigme doesn't need charms to ward off bullets," Remo told him. "Now, let's go."

  They had to walk. The jeep was burning nicely now. It had been running low on gas anyway.

  "How far to Lhasa?" Remo asked as they started down into the valley.

  "Less than a day's march," Bumba Fun told him.

  "Good. Maybe I can hitch a ride."

  "Any true Tibetan would be honored to give Gonpo Jigme a ride to Lhasa, but there is not enough room in the truck for all of us."

  "I just need you guys to get me through this city."

  "It is called Shigatse, and why does Gonpo Jigme speak English?"

  Remo thought fast. "Because Gonpo Jigme took a vow not to speak Tibetan until Tibet was free again."

  Bumba Fun translated this for his fellow Khampas. Grunts and nods of approval followed. Mentally Remo wiped his brow.

  As they neared the city, music blared out. Remo had seen the loudspeakers posted throughout the town. And the music, martial and strident, was the Chinese national anthem, "The East Is Red."

  Remo's face darkened in a frown. "Great. Now the whole neighborhood is going to wake up."

  "It is a great day," agreed Bumba Fun.

  Remo was wondering how they'd get through the city quietly when Bumba Fun gave a signal to his men. They pulled the box-headed arrows from quivers, nocked them and let fly.

  The whistling startled crows, set dogs to barking and was guaranteed to alert any PLA or PSB cadres who happened to have retained their hearing.

  "What are you doing?" Remo demanded.

  "Announcing to the oppressors your arrival, O Protector of the Tent."

  "Are you crazy?"

  "The Chinese will run once they realize it is you, Gonpo."

  "The Chinese will shoot us where we stand," Remo said flatly.

  The Khampa shrugged. "If we are fated to die in your company, so be it."

  "You screw this up, and I guarantee you'll come back as a yak in the next life," Remo warned.

  The Khampa brightened. "Yaks are good. Give meat, milk and do hard work."

  "A three-legged yak with no horns. And fleas."

  The Khampa bowed his head. "Command us, O Gonpo, and it will be done as you wish."

  "I gotta get through town without the Chinese getting suspicious."

  "It will be done."

  "Then I'm going to need to get to Lhasa as fast as possible."

  "This can be done."

  "And no screwups."

  "What is a screwup?"

  "A three-legged yak without horns."

  "No such yaks will trouble your journey, O Gonpo. Await us here."

  Remo got down behind a rock and waited. He hated waiting, but even dressed as a Khampa, he had an obviously American face, spoke no Tibetan and would stick out like a sore thumb.

  He didn't have to wait long. There was an explosion. It was followed by a coil of black smoke. A siren wailed. The rattle of small-arms fire came and went.

  "Damn. They screwed up."

  A truck barreling back from town, overloaded with Khampas, made Remo think otherwise. He stepped out into the road and noticed that more Khampas were coming back than had gone in the first place.

  "Where'd you pick these guys up?" Remo asked, jumping into the passenger seat, which had been reserved in his honor.

  "Chushi Gangdruk everywhere," Bumba Fun said. "Chinese never know what hit them."

  "They're all dead?"

  "Most. Some may still be dying. It will not be long."

  The truck turned around and barreled into town.

  The city wasn't any more appealing up close than it was from above. Gray, uniform buildings clicked by. So did Tibetan faces. They were lining the road to wave to him. Most showed him their tongues. Occasionally Remo stuck out his tongue in return.

  Along the way they picked up more trucks and the odd jeep, overloaded with boisterous Tibetans.

  After they passed out of town, Shigatse resumed exploding. Remo looked back. Fires were starting.

  "Why are they burning down their own city?"

  "It was built by Chinese. Now that Tibet is free, they want to live in a city built by Tibetans."

  "Tibet isn't free yet."

  "It is just a matter of another day or two now that Gonpo Jigme rides with the Khampas and the Bunji Lama has come to claim the Lion Throne."

  "I had my hopes set on blowing into Lhasa quietly."

  "We will blow into Lhasa as quietly as we are blowing out of this city," Bumba Fun assured him. And someone let fly with one of the whistling arrows that seemed to serve no other purpose than to substitute for fireworks.

  Remo settled down for the ride. At least he was starting to feel as if he was making progress.

  The mountains still seemed to be calling him, though. That part bothered him. How could mountains call him? And why?

  Chapter 34

  Old Thondup Phintso could not sleep. He tossed on his bedding of old yak skins, dressed in the maroon robe he rarely doffed, wondering what it could all mean.

  The Bunji Lama was a mig gar-a white eyes. With saffron hair. That at least was a good augury. But a white eyes?

  It was said that the Panchen Lama had been discovered in far-off America and while the new Panchen was not white, it was the farthest from Tibet that a tulku had been found.

  He could not sleep, ruminating on these things, and when the dawn came and the hated blare of the loudspeakers began issuing the tinny discord of "The East Is Red," Thondup Phintso threw off the yak skins and walked barefoot and agitated through the dripping coolness of the Potala.

  He came to the quarters of the Bunji Lama. The heavy wood door, carried on the backs of serfs from faraway Bhutan centuries ago, was closed. He put his ear to the moist wood and heard no sound.

  Carefully he pushed the door inward. The hinges did not squeak, as he knew they would not.

  A shaft of rosy light slanted across the sumptuous quarters. He saw the kang and its bedding all disheveled and hesitated, his heart high in his throat.

  Then he saw the Bunji.

  The Bunji Lama squatted over the chamber pot, saffron skirts hiked over his thighs. His urine tinkled in a golden rill into the waiting brass pot. The Dalai's personal pot.

  Thondup Phintso narrowed his eyes. Something was amiss.

  The Bunji looked up, blue eyes flashing in annoyance. And from the Bunji's mouth issued a shrill exclamation. "Jesus H. Christ! Can't a Buddha have any privacy around here?"

  And eyes widening in shock, Thondup Phintso hastily withdrew. Pulling his robes about him, he ran, feet smacking the stone flooring like solitary applause, for the great wooden doors.

  It was sacrilege. The Bunji was not only white, but a woman. Such a creature could never be allowed to claim the Lion Throne.

  As much as he detested the thought, Thondup Phintso would bring this sacrilege to the attention of the Public Security Bureau.

  If terrible events resulted, he comforted himself with the knowledge that they, like all things, had been ordained from the beginning of time.

  THE EASTERN REACHES of Tibet unrolled in a long yellow-green carpet under the flashing wings of the Soviet-built CAAC turboprop plane.

  Sitting in the copilot's seat, the minister of state security watched the unending pastureland roll by. It made him uneasy. All that barrenness. To go down in it was to face days, if not weeks, of cruel trekk
ing to civilization, assuming one survived.

  Ahead the horizon was a haze of mountain ranges. As forbidding as the eastern reaches were, the mountains would be infinitely worse. He dreaded the landing at Lhasa's Gonggar Airport so much that he could not bear to look at the mountains from a distance. To land at Gonggar, the pilot would have to ride a knifeblade channel between towering peaks in thin air that would test the turboprop engines.

  Back in the passenger area, the Tashi squatted in the middle of the aisle, dwarfed by his retinue. He looked tiny, more like a creature out of superstitious mythology than a human being, as he spun the solid-gold prayer wheel that the minister of state security had presented to him as a reward for making the difficult flight to Lhasa. An altogether too pitiful figure on which to place the future of China's claim to Tibet.

  In ten, twenty years, after the proper training and indoctrination, yes. It was conceivable. But rulers-even puppet rulers-were not selected and installed overnight. The advent of the Bunji Lama had changed all that. The minister of state security only hoped the Tashi was equal to the Bunji.

  But not as much as he hoped that they would survive the landing at Gonggar.

  THE BUNJI LAMA, it was recorded, assumed the Lion Throne without fanfare, notice or pomp, as befitted one who came to the sacred Potala in the dead of night on the selfless task of freeing Tibet from sorrow and slavery.

  This was done in the early hours of the last morning of the second month of the Iron Dog Year, with no eyes but those of the all-seeing gods to witness the auspicious moment.

  SQUIRRELLY CHICANE was still sleepy. Her brain felt like it had been soaked in ether. It was not a half-bad feeling, actually. She rather liked it. At least it was better than the pounder the high altitude had given her.

  Looking around, she wondered where she was. The walls were painted with Buddhas, bodhisattvas and other mythic creatures. The ceiling was arched and high. The furniture was exquisite, especially the ornate gilt chair off in one corner. There were Chinese dragons or dogs or something decorating it.

  Since there wasn't any place more inviting, she went over and sat down.

  "Comfy," she said approvingly. Right then and there she decided that her awakening scene would be filmed on location. If the budget allowed. If not, it could probably be recreated on a soundstage in Burbank.