by Fritz Galt
“I looked for you,” Sullivan said. “But I never found you.”
“That’s because nobody returns from where I went.”
“Interesting. Or leaves where you came from. Russians did build a wall.”
“Did they? Is it still up?”
Where had Fried been all these years?
“The wall was torn down thirty years later, in 1991.”
“By the Americans?”
Fried had missed the entire Cold War and the rise and collapse of the Soviet state.
“No,” Sullivan said under his breath so that nobody passing his office could overhear him. “The Poles, the Hungarians, the Czechs and the Germans all tore their walls down. So did the Romanians, the Bulgarians…”
“I see,” Fried said. “It must have been a horrible time.” He seemed on the verge of apology. “But I still maintain that my mission was necessary, despite what happened afterward.”
Sullivan fingered the tip of the dart. “Would you mind telling me what that mission was?” Surely the secrecy could be lifted at that late date.
“I am sorry,” Fried said. “I am sworn to secrecy. And the danger posed in 1961 is every bit as real today.”
What sort of secret was too great for the CIA and more important than the Iron Curtain? His old suspicions about Herr Professor crept back. It felt as if they were sitting in his consulate office in the American Sector once again. Again, Fried was either trying to peddle something or had delusions of grandeur. After all those years, Sullivan still didn’t know which.
“So now you’re looking for another visa,” he said grimly.
“Not at all,” Fried said with a laugh. “I am simply trying to get back in touch with anyone I might still know from before.”
“Try going back to Berlin and looking up family members.”
“There are none. The truth is I am standing in the Frankfurt Airport, and I don’t recognize a thing. The world has changed in forty-five years. They don’t even let me walk out to the airplane.”
Sullivan could imagine how unrecognizable Germany would be to a modern-day Rip van Winkle.
“What do you need?” Was it cash?
“Simply this.” Fried took a deep breath. “I didn’t want to have to divulge this, but my days may be numbered. I am trying to reach the world’s foremost authority on Shangri-la.”
“Shangri-la? Is that what you were looking for in China?” Sullivan had to suppress a laugh. The whole cat-and-mouse game between Khrushchev and Fried were over the myth of Shangri-la? Now it was clear that Fried was a kook, not to mention paranoid. He refused to fall for this one.
“I cannot say any more. I simply need your help.”
“It’s not my help you need.”
“I have no one else to turn to. I need an authority on Shangri-la.”
“Fine. I happen to know where you might find such a person. There’s a Shangri-la symposium beginning in Paris tomorrow.”
“Paris? Tomorrow? You have been a good friend. You deserve some happiness now.”
And with that, Sullivan’s brush with his past was over. It seemed comical, as if some clever colleague had set him up again. Or was it a sign that his career had come full circle and was about to end?
He set the phone down. What did Fried know about his happiness? The CIA took its toll on one’s personal life, but it had its moments. He decided to put the phone call out of mind.
A few more trips appeared in Liang’s travel record. Some trips were harder for the computer to find because the places were so obscure: Srinigar in Kashmir. Hunza in Pakistan. Sakten in Bhutan. Garuda Valley in Tibet. And Zhongdian in western China. All remote Himalayan enclaves.
He twirled the dart between his thumb and forefinger, trying to focus on the present.
Imagine all those people converging on that obscure symposium in Paris: Brad and May, Dr. Yu, Earl and Jade. And now Professor Fried.
Shangri-la, huh? Years ago, he had read James Hilton’s 1937 novel about foreign travelers crash-landing on a snowy pass in the Himalayas and happening upon a magic valley where everyone was happy and lived forever. One traveler was a skeptic and left the land, while the other was more in tune with Eastern mysticism and chose to stay. Clearly the story was a polemic against narrow-mindedness and only loosely based on fact, like Hilton’s other stories, such as Goodbye, Mr. Chips. Who other than Professor Fried would chase that dream, especially when it led to the most dangerous mountains in the world?
Kashmir, Pakistan, Bhutan, Tibet. The names jumped off the screen at him. Liang was looking for Shangri-la, too. And that explained why he went to Paris.
He tossed the dart. Bulls-eye! 100 points.
He scrambled to retrieve his personal digital assistant (PDA), car keys and passport, while searching for the phone number of the Travel Desk.
He found the number, dialed it, and stood to leave.
“Get me on the next flight to Paris.”
Chapter 15
Monday
The day broke bright and promising for May. Birds sang cheerfully outside her temporary quarters at the Chinese Embassy in downtown Paris. Too bad she would spend most of the day in a lecture hall.
Along with Jade and Dr. Yu and accompanied by two Chinese Embassy bodyguards, she set off by van for the symposium. Although nicely dressed for the occasion, Jade acted less than enthusiastic.
“You really don’t need to come with us,” May reminded her friend. “I can take care of my father.”
She knew that Jade would be bored stiff by the lectures and was looking for an excuse to beg off.
“You go look after Brad and Earl.”
Brad was on “urgent business,” and Earl had found some other excuse to miss the talks. Loyalty to her father’s work would not have been enough reason for May to attend, but concern for his safety was.
“First let me look over the security situation,” Jade said.
The van headed upriver and the architecture changed to that of an earlier era. They were entering the oldest section of Paris, a neighborhood called le Marais. There, the king had drained the marshland for the aristocracy to build their intown abodes.
The street led under an arched passageway and revealed mansions clustered around a symmetrical garden. They had entered the Place des Vosges. The pink brick and gray slate villas abutted each other to form a phalanx of 17th Century splendor. Perhaps even more distinctive, the sidewalk was built under the second level of the buildings, forming a covered arcade, a feature found in only the oldest cities of Europe.
May could imagine horses prancing in the sunlight, drawing noblemen and courtesans in carriages.
What a quiet and exclusive place to hold a symposium. Even so, the bodyguards looked nervous. There were few exits from the square, narrowing their options for escape should Liang make another attempt on her life.
As they drove around the square, May got a look at the stone statue in the center, the diagonal pathways, flowing fountains and small clusters of trees. The layout was so sterile, compared with the wild imagination at play in Chinese gardens.
They passed a busy restaurant on the sidewalk at one corner of the square. People were relaxing with their morning coffee. If they only knew what Liang was up to.
The thought of him lurking somewhere in the city gave her chills. She knew how to rebuff his amorous advances and how to evade him in a dogfight, but what she dreaded most was a surprise attack.
“Are you sure you’ll be safe?” Jade said.
“As a bird in her nest,” May tried to assure her. “The police are looking for him. He can’t get away with anything.”
“Who are you talking about?” Dr. Yu said.
May hadn’t had the heart to tell him that Liang Jiaxi had tried to kill her. Twice in the past two years, Liang had kidnapped the old anthropologist, both unpleasant experiences. She didn’t want to ruin his trip to Paris, nor disturb his thoughts before his talk.
“It’s nobody, father,” she said.
That was a reasonable assumption. “Yes. It’s Brad. I don’t know where he is.”
“It would be a shame for him to miss my speech,” Yu said. “After all, he wrote most of it.”
At the end of the square, May spotted an odd-looking hodgepodge of people piling out of cars. Some wore turbans; others, orange robes. Many looked like scholars who hadn’t left their ivory towers for years. Several were reporters trying to initiate conversations. It was a familiar scene for May and her father, a convention of crackpots ranging from laymen to experts discussing some obscure remnant of history.
They had arrived at a meeting of the Shangri-la Society.
The gathering was to last for two days, with opening remarks by Mr. Beau Buford on the first morning, followed by a presentation of papers. During breaks and in the corridors, ideas and business cards would be exchanged among participants. She could see why Jade didn’t mind missing that. The highlight of the second day would be an afternoon keynote speech delivered by Dr. Yu. Surely Brad would not miss that.
Fond as she was of her father and much as she trusted his research and scholarship, May had no interest in the subject and no patience for the grinding pace of academia. The way she saw it, some people were thinkers and others were doers. And she was a doer.
On any other day, she would find a way to ditch her father. But this day was different. With Liang at large, she didn’t want her father vulnerable to another kidnapping. Furthermore, she, too, needed to lie low.
A man at the door was checking off names and handing out official-looking badges. He recognized Dr. Yu and handed him a nametag, complete with an identifying photo. May was impressed. The man even had one for her.
She signaled to Jade and the two bodyguards. “They have tight security for this event. Don’t worry about us.”
Jade still looked uncertain.
“Go and enjoy the day,” May said. “For both of us.”
Jade smiled and waved good-bye. Then May smoothed out her white silk pants suit and followed her father into the cool interior of the 400-year-old building. She was disappointed to find only a coatroom and small adjoining office.
“Please proceed upstairs,” a receptionist said.
Dr. Yu was spry for his age, but the two long flights of stairs up to the second floor forced him to stop midway and catch his breath. May took the opportunity to glance around. Clearly, they were in what was designed as public space leading to private apartments on the upper floors. Nevertheless, old oil paintings and ink drawings lined the walls all the way up the stairs.
“Step aside,” a voice ordered from below.
May glanced down. Two men were pushing a man in a wheelchair into the building. The man grimaced stoically and gripped his armrests with black-gloved hands.
“Let’s go, baba,” she said, and prodded her father up the steps with all the courtesy of a Beijing passenger trying to board a bus.
They entered the crowded apartment. Once again, she was disappointed. Instead of an aristocrat’s chambers, it was set up like a typical conference room. There were rows of chairs and a podium. Nodding to vague acquaintances and people May had never met, Dr. Yu worked the crowd of Hindus and Buddhists.
She searched the faces for Liang, but nobody fit the description. After all, this was no place for a handsome, muscular Chinese man with murder on his mind.
“Announcing Mr. Beau Buford,” a voice called out from behind.
Suddenly the room fell silent. Everyone turned to the doorway. There, the man in the wheelchair raised a gloved hand and tipped his hat.
The society’s chief benefactor had arrived.
Chapter 16
It had taken Beau Buford several months to arrnage the Shangri-la Society meeting. He had been shackled by Grand Jury proceedings in D.C. when his Chinese cohort Liang Jiaxi suddenly called out of the blue. Ever since that day in early spring, Buford had sought a way to draw the old German professor that Liang had alluded to out of the Orient and into his hands.
According to Liang, the German knew the exact location of the mythical place known as Shangri-la. Together, Buford and Liang had hatched a plot to exploit the German’s knowledge to reap billions of dollars and make government and business leaders beholden to them.
Already, Buford had millions of dollars tucked away in Switzerland as several presidents and prime ministers as well as the corporate elite had prepaid for their ticket to immortality. All he had to do was find the damn place. When they had the key to Shangri-la, the narcissistic notables of the world would climb over each other to get there.
What was more, U.S. authorities would drop his indictment. And he would return to his former glory and head a new financial empire.
Apparently, the only person with knowledge of Shangri-la’s whereabouts was the German. But where was he?
Traveling incognito to France and appearing at the symposium as its benefactor had been a rush. It hadn’t taken much effort to acquire a wheelchair, a basic makeup kit, latex molds, and a toupee to cover his near-bald head. Putting on a Texan drawl was even easier.
After he offered President Chuck Webster a ticket to paradise, he received a presidential pardon for treason and the freedom to leave the country. His fake passport as the mysterious Beau Buford had fooled the immigration officials at Paris’s Charles de Gaulle International Airport. In addition, pushing himself around in a wheelchair had gained him added sympathy.
He adjusted his lightly shaded eyeglasses to make out the faces turning his way. There were lots of loose screws. There were the mystics, the parapsychologists, the seekers, the scholars and the informed laymen. There were men and women from cultures around the world, but no one fitting the description of an elderly German man.
Too bad, but he still expected the symposium to draw him out.
He picked the microphone off the lectern and wheeled around it to be seen. He checked the notes in his lap one last time. He had boned up on Shangri-la literature in the past few months while under the nominal custody of the FBI. He had learned a lot about the myth, but little about the science. A scientist by training, he had sought more details from the region and sent Liang on a fact-finding mission to help nail down the location, somewhere on the Tibetan Plateau. Liang had come back empty-handed, thus increasing the importance of finding the German.
He cleared his throat and turned on the mike. “How are all of y’all in the Shangri-la Society?” He made sure to slur words together like a true Texan. “My name is Beau Buford, and I would like to welcome you to this extempore meeting.”
People clapped enthusiastically. It surprised and gratified him. After all, he had received little support from the public and press in the past year.
“I would like to open this colloquium with general remarks on the facts, both religious and historical, that are well documented concerning Shangri-la. I will be followed by two days of speakers who will present scholarly papers, culminating in a keynote presentation by the noted Dr. Yu of China.”
He peered at the group and saw the old Chinaman seated beside May Hua. Despite the fact that Yu had undermined his efforts in the anthropological field time after time, Buford had developed a grudging respect for the old guy. It was hard for him to publicly acknowledge Dr. Yu’s authority, but when it really mattered, Dr. Yu was someone he could count on. Not only might Yu have something noteworthy to say on a subject that had eluded scholars for years, he was a large enough attraction to lure the German.
“Today, I will address the concept of Shambhala, or Shangri-la as it’s called in popular culture. The term ‘Shangri-la’ appears to have been derived from Shambhala which, in Sanskrit, means ‘place of peace, happiness and tranquility.’”
He had to admit that delving into exotic religions had been new territory for him, but he was still a researcher at heart, and what he found was fascinating.
“As I’m sure you know, Shambhala is revealed to us through the
Buddhist Kalachakra tantra, otherwise known as the Wheel of Time. In fact, the King of Shambhala, wishing to seek truth while maintaining worldly pleasures and responsibilities, sought teaching from Shakyamuni Buddha, who then created the Kalachakra.”
He looked around. People seemed to accept his assertions so far.
“So what was this kingdom like? The tantra speaks of a society where all are enlightened. They do not know war, crime or disease. The women are uniformly beautiful, and men dwell in magnificent palaces. Not bad, eh?”
There was an uncomfortable chuckle. He made a mental note not to make fun of their beliefs.
“More specifically, what was this kingdom like? Well, it had a capital at its center, a city named Kalapa. I’ve checked my maps, and so far I have yet to find it.”
This time, more sympathetic laughter rose from the room.
“The Kalachakra is said to reside in Shambhala, and the government is said to be structured as such: The kingdom is ruled by a benevolent monarch named kalika, whose job it is to ensure the integrity of the teachings. He is the enforcer, if you will.”
Another chuckle. He stole a look around the room. A suave young man wearing a pair of dark sunglasses slipped into the back row. That would be his associate, Liang Jiaxi. Still no creaky old German of any description. He went on.
“There has been some speculation on the origins of this king-like figure. Some assert that the kalika developed out of the mythological Hindu conqueror Kalki, who appeared to have a benevolent nature. Perhaps, we will hear research on this in the papers to follow.”
He checked his notes, more out of habit than necessity. He had submitted his entire research on Shambhala to memory.
“You may ask why Shambhala exists at all. Why is it important to the Buddha’s teachings? Certainly it offers mankind a model to which the world should aspire. Perhaps through meditation, one can actually reach Shambhala. But what interests me most, and where I hope the thrust of this gathering of esteemed guests takes us, is what physical place Shambhala inhabits in the real world.”