by Steve Berry
He started to walk across the packed earth, Viktor at his side.
The helicopter lifted off into a salmon-colored sky. Rotors faded and the meadow lapsed into a deep silence.
Yecheng was a mere thirty-minute flight north.
Hopefully, there’d been success there and the chopper would return with Ni Yong and Lev Sokolov. He was dressed in his same filthy clothes. On the flight he’d forced himself to eat a few of the onboard rations. He was prepared. Ready for this day. One he’d been anticipating for two decades.
“What is going to happen?” Viktor asked.
“It doesn’t concern you.”
Viktor stopped. “Doesn’t concern me? I killed a pilot for you. I delivered Malone, Vitt, and Ni Yong for you. I played out your game, exactly as you ordered. And this doesn’t concern me?”
He, too, stopped, but did not turn around. Instead, he allowed his gaze to focus on the distant mountains, west, beyond Batang, and what he knew waited there. “Do not try my patience.”
He did not need to face Viktor to know that a gun was trained on him. He’d allowed him to keep the weapon.
“You plan to shoot me?” he calmly asked.
“Could solve many problems, not the least of which is your ingratitude.”
He kept his back to Viktor. “Is that what the Russians want you to do? Kill me? Would that please them?”
“You pay better.”
“As you keep telling me.” He decided to use diplomacy, at least until all of the threats were eliminated. “Know that I do need your assistance. I ask simply for patience. All will be clear in the coming hours.”
“I should have gone to Yecheng.”
Viktor had asked and he’d said no. “You were not needed there.”
“Why am I here?”
“Because what I seek is here.”
And he started walking.
Malone sat with Cassiopeia on a filthy brick floor. They were kept separately from Ni and Sokolov, all of them held at the landing field, inside the tiny terminal, locked in some sort of steel-walled storage room lit by a dusty yellow bulb.
“None of that went right,” Cassiopeia said.
He shrugged. “Best I could do on short notice.”
The fetid air carried the scent of a dumpster. He wondered what had been kept inside here recently.
“I doubt Sokolov is in danger,” Malone said. “At least not for now. Tang went to a lot of trouble to get him back. Ni, though, is another matter. I think whatever is going to happen to him will not be good.”
Cassiopeia sat with her arms wrapping bended knees. She looked tired. He definitely was, though they’d both slept some on the flight. They’d been sitting here for more than an hour without a sound from outside.
“What do we do now?” she asked.
“Play for a fumble.”
She smiled. “You always so optimistic?”
“Beats the hell out of the alternative.”
“You and I have some issues.”
That he knew. “Later. Okay?”
She nodded. “I agree. Later.”
But what went unspoken hung clear. So long as there is a later.
A new sound invaded their silence.
Helicopter rotors.
Ni sat in the lit room. Its only window was guarded on the outside by one of the men with automatic rifles. Another surely stood on the other side of the closed door. He wondered what had happened to Malone and Vitt. Clearly, Tang wanted both him and Sokolov alive. Defeat clouded Sokolov’s face, but not the panic he’d expected.
“Why hasn’t anyone else ever considered what you discovered?” he asked the Russian in Mandarin. “Malone says the Russians have known of infinite oil for a long time.”
“It’s not that easy for them. How many samples of two-thousand-year-old oil exist on the planet? Samples verifiable, comparable with modern-day samples extracted from same field?” Sokolov paused, his gaze to the floor. “Only one place on the planet has that. Here, in China. No one else was capable of drilling for oil that long ago. Only the Chinese. The proof is here. Nowhere else.” The voice stayed low, as if Sokolov was actually sorry he’d made the discovery.
“Your son will be okay.”
“How you know that?”
“You’re too valuable. Tang knows the boy is his only real bargaining power with you.”
“At least until he learns what I know.”
“Did you tell him?’
“Some. But not all.”
He remembered the disgust the Russian voiced on the plane and felt compelled to say, “We are not all like Karl Tang.”
Sokolov glanced up for the first time. “No. But you are all Chinese. That’s bad enough.”
Tang walked down Batang’s only street, noticing that it remained a place of drab buildings and shadeless alleys, all swept by dust. Wooden carts dotted the edges, along with a couple of trucks parked at odd angles. Two prayer wheels creaked with each revolution and rang bells. A huge mastiff rocketed from one of the alleys and flipped on his back when he found the end of a rope tied to his collar. The dog stood and pounced again, seemingly determined to either stretch or break the restraint.
Tang faced the barking animal.
A gong hung suspended by beams and leather straps a few meters away. Soon it would announce the start of another day.
A small hotel, half ruined, with doors ajar and walls iced with grit and grim beckoned. That, too, had changed little.
The dog continued to bark.
“Wake the owner,” he ordered Viktor.
He knew that venturing into the mountains without sunlight was foolish. The trails were fragile and subject to rockslides. Increasing daylight, and a diminishing haze, were already bringing the distant peaks into focus.
It would not be long.
Ni was not afraid anymore. The inside of Qin Shi’s tomb, underground, in a locale no one knew even existed, had offered Tang the perfect venue to kill him. But doing it here, with all of these witnesses, seemed out of the question. Not even the first vice premier could keep that secret. Instead, he realized they would be taken somewhere private, and the sound of rotors approaching signaled that his conclusion seemed correct.
Sokolov reacted to the sound, too.
“We are going to where your son is,” he said.
“How do you know that?”
“Tang needs us both alive. Me for just a short while. You, much longer. So he will reunite you and the boy, as a way to placate.”
“You are not afraid?”
“I’m more afraid of failing.”
Sokolov seemed to understand. “What about Malone and Vitt?”
“I’m afraid their situation is much worse.”
SEVENTY
Malone listened as the helicopter rotors revved, then faded. The aircraft had stayed for only a few minutes, long enough, he assumed, to board Ni and Sokolov.
“Our turn,” he said to Cassiopeia.
They both still sat on the floor.
“But we aren’t going to be flown away,” she said.
“We might. We’ll just land a little differently.”
They were foreigners, here illegally, spies that no one would claim or care about. One of those occupational hazards of his former job.
He didn’t have to say it. She knew. They would take their chances at the first opportunity. Since they literally had nothing to lose.
The scrape of metal indicated that the steel door was being unlocked. Cassiopeia started to rise, but he placed a hand on her knee and shook his head. She stayed on the floor.
The door swung open and the police commander from earlier entered, carrying a pistol. He didn’t look happy.
“Tough night?” Malone asked.
He wondered if the man understood. But this was not Beijing or eastern China where English was common. This was the middle of frigging nowhere. The man motioned for them to stand and leave. Outside the doorway, two more men waited with automatic rifles.
Malone studied them. Both young, unsure, and jittery. How many times had they been in this situation before? Not many, he guessed.
The commander motioned again.
He noticed that the steel door, which opened to the outside, contained no knob-operated latch, just a handle and a lock that engaged, once closed, in a steel catch, which required a key to release.
“I don’t think these people understand English,” he muttered to Cassiopeia.
The head man was impatient with their chatter but did not seem to know what they were saying. Malone smiled and said in a calm voice, never breaking his smile, “You smell like a pig.”
The commander stared back with no reaction to the insult, offering only another gesture with the gun for them to leave.
He turned and said to her, “He knows no English. Ladies first. Be ready to move.”
She stepped through the doorway.
He watched as the chief dropped back to give him room to leave, exactly what he thought the man might do. That way he could counter if they tried anything funny, the distance between them adding protection.
Except for one thing.
As Malone exited, he swung his right foot up and slammed the door shut, trapping the policeman inside. At the same time, his left elbow burrowed into the man nearest him, sending the guard careening back.
Cassiopeia pounced, attacking the man closest to her with a kick to his chest.
Both guards had been caught unawares.
Malone lunged forward and planted a fist into his man’s face. The guard tried to retaliate while also keeping a grip on the rifle—bad idea—and Malone gave him no time to think. Three more right jabs and the man went down. He relieved him of the weapon, along with a pistol from a waist holster.
He turned to see Cassiopeia having a little difficulty:
“Hurry up,” he said.
Two thrusts of the other man’s fists missed as she dodged. The guard had already lost his weapon, which lay on the floor. Cassiopeia lashed out, but the blow just grazed her opponent’s throat. She then spun and jumped, her right leg swinging in an arc that landed with full force in his chest. Another leg jab smashed him into the wall, and she finished with two thrusts to the throat, which sent the guard slinking to the floor.
“Took you long enough,” he said.
“You could have helped.”
“As if you needed it.”
She stole the man’s pistol from his holster and retrieved the rifle. The chief was no threat, locked away inside a steel room, banging on the door, screaming something in muffled Chinese.
“There were two more earlier,” she said, “with rifles. Plus the two drivers.”
He’d already done the math. “I suggest we move with caution.”
He slipped close to one of the windows and glanced out, spotting the Range Rover parked fifty yards away. The van was nowhere in sight.
Which worried him.
“Let’s hope the keys are in that Rover,” he said.
They found the door and cautiously inched it open. Night still loomed thick and heavy, the landing field quiet.
“They were either taking us somewhere to kill us or were going to kill us here,” he said. “Either way, they’d need that van.”
He saw she was thinking the same thing.
“No sense waiting around.”
She stepped out, her assault rifle leading the way.
He followed.
A hundred and fifty feet lay between them and the Rover. His gaze raked the darkness. Pools of light from the rooftop floods lit the way. They were halfway to their objective when the roar of an engine disturbed the silence and the van motored its way past one of the hangars, heading their way.
He saw an arm extend from the passenger side holding a pistol.
Cassiopeia did not hesitate, spraying the windshield with a barrage from the automatic rifle. The bullets caused the gun in the window to disappear and the van wheeled right, careening up on two wheels as it executed too sharp a turn, spinning out of control, sliding on its side, slamming into one of the hangars.
They raced to the Range Rover and hopped inside, Malone at the wheel. Keys hung from the ignition.
“Finally, something went right.”
He gunned the engine and they fled the fenced enclosure.
“There is one thing,” Cassiopeia said.
He’d been waiting.
“How do we get there? We certainly can’t stop and ask directions.”
“Not a problem.”
He reached into his back pocket and produced a folded bundle. “I kept the map Ni used on the plane. Thought we might need it.”
SEVENTY-ONE
BATANG
7:00 AM
Tang stood at the window and shaded his eyes from a bar of golden sun cresting over the eastern peaks. He nursed a cup of sweet black tea, scented with cardamom. He half expected to hear the romantic wail of a conch shell, its rising tone like a foghorn, echoing off the cliffs. A brother had once, each day at dawn, blown that siren from the monastery walls.
He glanced down at the street.
Batang was coming alive, a trickle of people slowly becoming a stream. Most wore wool gowns with red waistbands and saffron caps, ankle-length with high collars, which offered protection from a wind that leaned into the building and rattled the wooden walls. He knew the weather here was fickle, particularly this time of year. Though high in altitude, the late-spring air would be surprisingly warm, heated by UV rays that the thin atmosphere did little to negate.
Viktor was downstairs eating. Two hours ago he’d received word through his satellite phone that Ni and Sokolov had left Yecheng, in custody. He’d ordered the chopper to deliver his prisoners then come for him at seven thirty. He’d been pleased to hear that Malone and Vitt had been captured and, he assumed, were now dead.
All of the elements were finally dropping into place.
He breathed in the warm air, redolent with the smell of oily butter lamps. Outside the panes, the dull crystal ting of bells could be heard.
The door opened.
He turned and said to Viktor, “It’s time for me to leave. The helicopter will return shortly.”
On the bed lay equipment that Viktor had brought with him earlier. Some rope, a backpack, flashlight, knife, and fleece-lined jacket.
“The walk up to the hall is a little over an hour,” Tang said. “The trail starts west of town and winds upward. The hall lies on the other side of the ridge, just past a suspension bridge. Buddhas carved into the rock, beyond the bridge, mark the way. It is not hard to find.”
“What happened in Yecheng?”
“It’s not important.”
Viktor Tomas was apparently still concerned about Cassiopeia Vitt. Strange. To him, women were nothing but a distraction. Men like Viktor should feel the same way. Odd that he didn’t.
Viktor gathered up his gear, slipping on a leather jacket.
“Take that trail,” Tang said. “Make sure no one from here follows. Arrive at the hall unnoticed and enter with caution. I’m told there are few there, so you should be able to gain entrance easily. The main gates are left open.”
“I’ll cover your back,” Viktor said. “But, Minister, you have a more immediate problem.”
He didn’t like the words or the tone. “Why do you say that?”
“Because Malone and Cassiopeia Vitt just drove into town.”
Cassiopeia admired Batang. Whitewashed adobe walls, red moon and sun designs above the doors, firewood and dung bricks piled on the roofs—all typical for the area. A mixture of Mongols, Chinese, Arabs, and Tibetans who, unlike the populations of their respective countries, had learned to live together. They’d just driven nearly two hours through a skeletal landscape, stripped to its rocky bones, across a rough road.
“My gut is still reeling from those rations,” Malone said as they stepped from the Rover.
Along the way they’d found some food in the vehicle, rock-hard bars of cookie c
rumbs and milk powder mixed with what she thought was lard. Tasted like sweet cardboard. Her stomach was also upset from the bars and the jostling. Strange she’d get motion sick—one of those weaknesses she did not like to display or discuss—but firm ground felt good.
“Ni said the monastery is west of town,” she said. “We’re going to have to ask its location.”
Guarded faces watched both her and Malone. Glancing up, she spotted two ravens tumbling over each other in the morning sky. The air had definitely thinned and to compensate she’d found herself breathing faster, but she told herself to stop, as that would solve nothing.
“Asking doesn’t seem like a good idea,” Malone said as he stood near the hood.
She agreed. “I don’t think they get a lot of foreigners like us here.”
Tang kept away from the grimy window, loose in its frame.
“Seems you were right about Malone,” he said to Viktor. “He is a man to be respected.”
“So is she.”
He faced Viktor. “As you keep reminding me.”
Frustratingly, his need of this foreigner seemed to never end. “I’m going to leave. Occupy those two until I am away from town.”
“And what am I to do after I occupy them?”
“Make sure they head up into the mountains. Soldiers are there we can now use.”
“And are those soldiers there for me, too?”
“Hardly. Since you know about them.”
But he wondered if Viktor believed him. Hard to know anything about this guarded man. Always, something more seemed to percolate inside him. Like now. He’d come into the room knowing Malone and Vitt were here, yet he’d held that information until he was ready to reveal it.
Thankfully, by nightfall he would be rid of this man.
Along with all the others.
Malone heard the sound at the same time as Cassiopeia. The rhythmic thump of rotors. Low, steady, hypnotic, like a heartbeat.
“That’s a chopper,” he said.
“Coming closer.”
He strained into the ever-brightening sky and saw the craft, swooping in from the north, miles away. The helicopter cleared the peaks, then headed for a meadow of edelweiss beyond the edge of town. A distinctive green color and red star emblazoned on its side made clear its owner.