Shaking his head, waving his hands, Alex said, “Don’t try to pin this one on me! Er Shi Huangdi wasn’t up and walking around when I found him!”
Evelyn got between them, a palm on either man’s chest. “Stop it, you two! Nobody’s to blame here. Alex, your father had no intention of robbing your glory much less play hero. Rick, you know as well as I do, that you and I and for that matter our son were all manipulated by Roger Wilson.”
Neither father nor son could deny that.
Jonathan, wrapping some ice in a towel for O’Connell, said, “We could go back to the museum and you two could kick Roger’s head around awhile. I’m sure even old Roger wouldn’t object, at this point.”
The dark comedy of that made both O’Connell men smile, if not at each other.
Jonathan handed his brother-in-law the ice-packed towel, and Alex moved down the bar to where Lin rested against it. Even with soot on her face and with her dark coat ripped to pieces from the knees down, she was an exotic vision.
Alex said to her, “I apologize for my parents.”
“No need. They did what they thought was right.”
“You know, Lin, we worked really well together tonight.”
“We did. Except, of course, for one detail.”
“What’s that?”
“We failed.”
That threw Alex for a slight loop, but he rebounded, saying, “Yeah, well, you could look at it that way. I’m more of a glass-half-full kinda guy myself.”
Behind the bar, Jonathan, bringing his nephew a Coke and the young woman a glass of wine, said, “I’m more the who-the-bloody-hell’s-been-drinking-out-of-my-glass sort of bloke, personally. And here’s yours . . .”
In the mirror behind the bar, Evelyn had been watching her son and the lovely Chinese girl speak. After Lin’s eyes found hers, Evy came over and held a hand out to her.
“I’m sorry—we haven’t been properly introduced. Who exactly are you?”
But Lin did not immediately answer. She waited until tempers had cooled and everyone, minimally cleaned off, had gathered at one large table, with drinks provided by their host.
With all eyes on her, Lin said, “For centuries my family has watched over the Emperor’s tomb.”
O’Connell exchanged glances with Evy—this struck a familiar chord: their friend Ardeth Bay and the fabled Med-jai warrior priests had similarly guarded the tomb of Imhotep at Hamanaptra, the City of the Dead, in the Sahara.
But that been told in Evy’s novels, too, and Lin could be an impostor with a cover story essentially written by Evelyn O’Connell herself . . .
Alex nodded toward the dagger in Lin’s jeweled belt. “Where did the snazzy dragon dagger come from? That standard issue for tomb guardians?”
“Not exactly,” she said coolly. “The weapon has been passed down through the generations of my family. The blade is enchanted, if I may use such a term among archaeologists and scholars.”
Evy said, “You may.”
O’Connell said, “I shot the ear off our clay buddy the Emperor twice tonight . . . and it regenerated in seconds. So we’re pretty open-minded about this kind of stuff, Lin. Go ahead.”
Lin smiled faintly and nodded. “Only this blade can kill the Emperor. But it must pierce the dark heart of Er Shi Huangdi to do so.”
Evy was studying Lin with what O’Connell could read in his wife as suspicion, though that might not have registered on the others. She looked to him, and then to their son, and said, “Alex, darling? Might we have a quick, private family meeting?”
Alex shrugged. “Sure.” He smiled at Lin and touched her shoulder, then joined his parents, who had stepped away from the table and out of the young woman’s earshot.
Whispering, Evy said, “What do you really know about this girl?”
Alex glanced back at Lin, then met his mother’s eyes. “Admittedly . . . not much. She did attack me at the tomb . . .”
O’Connell said, “Ah.”
“But,” Alex went on, “that’s consistent with what she says about her family being guardians of that tomb over the generations. And after her help tonight, I’m willing to go on a little faith.”
O’Connell and Evy exchanged unsure glances.
“I saw her try to kill that Emperor Mummy,” Alex said, “tonight.” He had also witnessed her getting shot twice and surviving it without a scratch, but this he did not bring up. “Come on, Mom, Dad . . . we’ve got a mummy out there with a good head start on us, and I don’t believe either one of you is getting any younger.”
Lin’s voice, just behind them, came: “Time is running out.”
They turned to find her standing right there. O’Connell frowned and said, “You are familiar with the concept of privacy, right?”
She ignored the rhetorical question and got down to business: “The Emperor has the Eye of Shambhala—you may know it as the Eye of Shangri-la. If he reaches the place your culture knows as Shangri-la, and drinks from the Pool of Eternal Life, Er Shi Huangdi will become flesh and blood again, and raise his terra-cotta army . . . and all hope will be lost.”
Jonathan had wandered over and now said, “Much as I might like to take a swig from the Fountain of Youth, and stay this boyishly handsome forever, isn’t this Shangri-la a myth or, as we say in polite society, a load of bollocks?”
O’Connell shot him a look. “You used to feel the same way about reanimated mummies.”
Jonathan shrugged. “Valid point.”
Evy, her attitude different having heard Lin speak at more length, focused her attention on the young woman but spoke to them all: “The legends of the Eye mention a so-called Gateway, the location of which has always been shrouded in mystery.”
Jonathan smirked in irritation. “Why must these legends always be so obtuse? Can’t they just spell it out for once?”
Lin said, “The Gateway, like Shangri-la, is no myth. It is in the Himalayas. Once the Eye is placed in the crown of the stupa, it will point the way to Shangri-la.”
“Now that’s more like it,” Jonathan said with a grin. “Straightforward and to the point . . . I like this girl. Uh, by the way, what’s a ‘stupa’?”
Evy said, “A domed Buddhist shrine . . . Lin, how do you know all this?”
“Yeah,” Alex said, eyes on the young woman. “How?”
Lin gave him a blank look. “Perhaps saving your skin is not my only talent.”
Then she beamed at him, and he grinned back at her. The romantic sparks between the young duo were not lost on Alex’s mother.
O’Connell, however, was oblivious, perhaps because he was fixed upon other concerns. He asked Lin, “Can you lead us there?”
“I can.”
Jonathan made a clicking noise in his cheek and smiled wide. “Alex, my boy, this one’s a keeper.”
Before Alex had time to be embarrassed, his mother asked Lin, “But you still haven’t told us who you really are. Your family guarded the Emperor’s tomb. Your name is Lin. What else?”
Lin’s shrug was as gentle as her smile. “Let me help you, and you will find out more.”
Evy thought about that, then shrugged herself. She glanced at her husband as if to say, I can accept that.
His nod said as much to her.
“All right,” Evy said, and nodded crisply. “Now . . . obviously, we’ll need to charter a plane, and at very short notice.”
“Yes we will,” O’Connell said. “And I believe I know just the right dog for this fight . . .”
The best thing that could be said for Maddog Maguire’s plane was that it was enclosed. This was not a relic of World War I, no biplane like O’Connell’s late friend Winston Havlock had piloted, on a flight that had required Jonathan to be roped to one wing and Ardeth Bay to the other.
But it was a relic, and it rattled like one in the crosscurrents. Maguire was of course at the controls, with only God as his copilot, and in the frayed, crowded seats to his rear, Evy and O’Connell sat side by side, with Lin and Alex cl
ose behind them, while Jonathan was stuffed in back, sharing the heavily piled luggage area with a drool-dripping, quite hairy yak.
Evy and O’Connell were turning shades of green that went nicely with their attire, she in a red heavy fur-trimmed coat with a bold green-and-white-striped sweater and green pants with high laced-up boots, he in a brown leather jacket with lighter brown fur trim/lining, and a dark woolen scarf knotted around his neck, also with high boots up his brown trousers.
Even Alex, in a black stocking cap and dark blue jacket with fur trim, seemed shaken by the ride, as did Lin in her brown jacket with fur trim and hood. Jonathan’s brown jacket had more fur than anyone elses—not counting the yak, anyway.
And yet all that fur could not combat the cold the plane allowed in, and they all shivered, whether from the chill or fear or both, who could say?
From the cockpit, Maguire called back, “Any self-respecting pilot would land on the valley floor. Of course, I don’t have any damn self-respect, so I’ll set you down halfway up the mountain, instead.”
Evy, through chattering teeth, said, “Thank you! That will give us a nice advantage . . .”
“No extra charge, luv. ’Course, I can only guarantee you’ll be halfway up the mountain. Can’t guarantee you’ll be alive at the time . . .”
Evy glanced sharply at her husband, who said, “He’s always been a card.”
Maguire was saying, “Jonathan, you old reprobate! How are you doing back there?”
Jonathan was staring at the yak, who was staring back, drool dripping (the yak, not Jonathan).
“Peachy,” Jonathan said. “Just tickety boo . . .”
At the training camp near the ruins of the ancient Ming village, the troops were lined up in formation as General Yang and the Emperor Mummy were chauffeured through in an open jeep. Er Shi Huangdi sat erect, his bearing imperial, exuding power. As the vehicle passed, the soldiers would break formation to prostrate themselves before their terra-cotta emperor, and when the jeep pulled up before the crumbling temple that was Yang’s headquarters, the soldiers began to fire their weapons into the air and cheer wildly, madly.
The general escorted the Emperor into the command center, where, behind Yang’s desk, the huge map of modern China was on the wall on display. Immediately, the Emperor Mummy strode to the map and began to study it, intrigued.
“Welcome to twentieth-century China, my lord,” Yang said in ancient Mandarin, keeping a respectful distance.
The Emperor Mummy swung his head to turn the dead unblinking eyes on his servant. “Why have you raised me?”
Yang took two steps forward. “The China of today is in chaos. I knew only our greatest emperor and his army of warriors could restore it to its rightful glory.”
The Emperor Mummy turned back to the map. “And what do you hope to gain for yourself?”
General Yang swallowed. His chin went up. “I hope only to serve you as your faithful general.”
Again the lifeless eyes swung Yang’s way. “My last general was faithless. The last general betrayed me, and left me as you found me.”
Yang bowed his head. “I would never make such a mistake. I live to serve you, my lord.”
The Emperor Mummy’s dead gaze gave away nothing. Finally he said, “I cannot raise my warriors—they are as statues, lifeless, as was I.”
Now Yang dared to approach. “I understand, my lord—that is why I found the answer that you spent a lifetime seeking.”
The living statue tilted its head ever so slightly.
Yang went on: “I have found the secret to eternal life.” And from a pouch at his hip, he withdrew the blossomed Eye, and held it up. “This, the Eye of Shambhala, will point the way.”
The Emperor Mummy’s chest filled and something strange appeared on his reddish-brown countenance: the faintest of smiles, and the most chilling.
The old gray plane, fitted with skis, dipped toward the towering, rugged Himalayas, the fabled “abode of snow.” As the plane dove, the pilot worked his voice up above the propeller din.
“I’d tell you lot to fasten your seat belts,” Maguire shouted, “but I was too damn cheap to buy any! So kiss your arses good-bye, and hang on tight!”
Then the pilot took a generous snort from a bottle of Jameson’s—no passenger dared complain—and pushed the plane into a hair-raising decline. The aircraft swooped between two jagged outcroppings and dropped toward a narrow strip of snow. Soon the aircraft’s skis, touching down, were kicking up a blizzard of snow and ice, and the plane began to bump and skid violently across the midmountain snowfield.
O’Connell had once heard the expression “All landings are controlled crash landings.” This may not have been a crash landing, but it certainly seemed barely controlled, a ride almost as rough as that bronze steed had given him.
Maguire was cackling maniacally as he gripped his controls, and his passengers were hanging on to whatever they could—in Jonathan’s case, the yak with one arm (his other hand held a paper airsickness bag).
“Come on, you little ripper!” Maguire commanded, his grin surprisingly white in the midst of all that dark stubble.
Then the plane went flailing, whipping in a circle that created more green faces and many white knuckles and a sea of popped eyes. Finally—finally—the crate spun to a stop.
“How’s that for a smooth landing?” Maguire said, looking back at O’Connell with a cocky grin.
O’Connell grinned back—he had decided strangling Maguire was out of the question, since they would presumably need a ride home—and said, “Smooth as a three-day beard, Maddog.”
Around him, O’Connell noted, everyone was ashen-faced; the green, at least, had faded. Something foul was in the air, though, and Evy’s nose was twitching at it.
“What,” she asked, “is that god-awful smell?”
All eyes turned to Jonathan, whose airsickness bag was overflowing. He gave them a don’t-look-at-me expression, then nodded toward his hairy companion.
“The yak,” he explained, “yakked.”
Maguire up front said, “Welcome to Tibet, boys and girls.”
7
Gateway to Paradise
The Himalayas
Pristine white peaks pierced the blue sky like shark’s teeth, but Maddog Maguire, sitting on an apple box in the snow, was not terribly impressed. He’d seen mountains before, and in fact he’d even seen these. Warm in his well-weathered, fur-lined leather flight jacket, the stubbly-faced Irishman was hunkered near a field stove making himself a gentlemanly cup of tea.
What was on his mind was his own weakness as a negotiator—he had allowed his old Foreign Legion comrade, Ricochet Rick, to pay him in two installments—once for the flight to the mountains, and then another later for the flight back. Since the odds were against Rick and his little party ever returning, this had not been the shrewdest bargain Maguire had ever made.
His attention was drawn by a rumbling roar that he knew was a plane—C-119, he reckoned—but it was not coming from above him, no—rather, from the valley below. He got up from his seat and moved to the plateau’s edge, where, from behind a boulder, he watched his suspicion confirmed as a C-119 glided in and touched down.
The Fairchild C-119 Flying Boxcar was a transport aircraft, perfect for conveying troops, which Maguire soon saw was the case here—a general followed by a bizarre martial figure of reddish brown were the first out, succeeded by several scores of troops in gray military winter uniforms.
Maguire thought, There goes my second payment, and headed for his radio.
Daylight was dying and they had to keep moving.
The trek up the mountain was not so steep as to be impossible but steep enough to make Alex O’Connell’s legs ache, and he was a very fit young man. The snow had an icy cutting edge as it did its best to discourage them as they trod the path between the mountainside and the rocky shelf. Alex could not help but harbor some resentment, stuck back here toward the tail of their little procession. He would have
rather been at Lin’s side—she was up front, using a gnarled walking stick more suited to a crone than a young girl, but the way was rugged, after all. Meanwhile, he was stuck back here helping Jonathan encourage along the horned hairy beast piled with their supplies and armaments.
Even his mother was in front of him, and his father of course was right behind their girl guide.
“Listen, Jonathan,” Alex said, his breath pluming, “can you handle this beast of burden?”
“Might I ask why your father has your lovely mother,” Jonathan said, eyes hooded, face ice-flecked, “and you have the delicious Lin, whilst I have been paired with a yak? Just wondering . . .”
“Thanks, Uncle Jon,” Alex said, and moved over snowy, rocky ground, past his mother and father, catching up with Lin.
“Hi,” he said.
She glanced at him, but said nothing.
“You know, I read up on Tibet once, and it said monks stay warm by generating body heat. So, later, when it gets even colder, if you need someone to, well, rub up against you for warmth? I’m your man.”
Her withering look cut him worse than the whipping snow.
She moved on ahead of him, using her stick as support, and the boy thought, Smooth, Alex, real smooth . . .
From the radio strapped to the yak came the voice of their pilot: “This is Delta Tango Alpha to Ricochet. Come in, Ricochet.”
O’Connell, in sunglasses (even late in the day the glare of the sun off the snow could be blinding), fell back and yanked the mouthpiece from the two-way radio, walking along with the beast that bore it, Jonathan at the rear.
“Come in, Delta Tango Alpha.”
“You know those two fellas you said I should look out for? Well, I believe they just pulled into town with all their best boyos.”
“Those fellas,” of course, were General Yang and the Emperor.
O’Connell signed off, then moved back up in front of Evy, calling, “Okay, people! We’ve gotta pick up the pace—move!”
In the process of trying to do as O’Connell asked, Lin slipped, and Alex was right there to catch her, and help her regain her footing. He was unaware, as was Lin, that Alex’s mother had noted the charged energy between them . . .
The Mummy Tomb of the Dragon Emperor Page 10