The Brad West Files

by Fritz Galt

  But how did one get to Shambhala?

  In the center of the mandala, the monks had depicted a lotus blossom. Surrounding that were eight widening squares. Perhaps the eight regions surrounding Shambhala weren’t in the shape of lotus petals as he had earlier surmised. Maybe the eight regions surrounding Kalapa were concentric like those in the mandala. Maybe one could only approach bliss by passing through all surrounding regions.

  Then he returned to the whirring sound behind him.

  The row of prayer wheels stretched from one side of the temple to the other. As if playing a game, May tried to keep all cylinders spinning on their vertical axes at the same time.

  He remembered a scrap of information from his research. “Ah, I think you’re supposed to spin them this way.” He pointed to his watch. “Like a clock.”

  She stared at what she had produced, an entire row of clunky metal wheels all spinning counter-clockwise. Not only did she ignore him, she worked even harder, as if turning back the hands of time.

  He glanced at his watch. He wished they could slow time down. It was only an hour until sunset, and only a day to find Dr. Yu and return with May to Beijing to get married.

  He looked down at the mandala. How many levels were there left? Would they ever reach Kalapa? It was looking less and less likely.

  He tugged the hat back over his face and grabbed May to leave.

  Chapter 55

  As the sun rose, Igor Sullivan drove to work with a guilty conscience. He had kept Linda at the office and spoiled their plans for French cuisine in Georgetown. Instead of dining out, they had driven to their respective homes and crashed for the night. Their relationship was quickly turning routine.

  He resolved to shake it up a bit.

  As soon as he reached his office, he called the research department and asked for Linda.

  She was busy on a rush project, but agreed to a date that night. They settled on a second attempt at the restaurant in Georgetown.

  He set the phone down. Nothing should interfere with his love life. No national emergency could hold him back. Family obligations could wait. He was a new man with a new purpose in life. He would live for romance.

  On the other hand, working with Linda until the wee hours of the morning had been a pleasant balance. Neither had seemed eager to leave. He was glad she didn’t need to be swept off her feet each evening. A professional mind-meld was arousing in itself.

  He caught his reflection in the computer screen. What a nerd.

  Reluctantly, he returned to his keyboard. He and Linda had talked about Shangri-la in the abstract. But where was it actually located? He doubted that Google maps would show anything useful, but who knew? With the CIA’s high-powered satellite cameras, he could zoom in on his neighbor’s back yard in real time. And he had, once. But to find Shangri-la, he needed to know where to point the damn thing.

  He had to amass every detail he knew. The continental land-grabs of the Second World War were too large a starting point.

  Then he remembered the drawing room conversation just before his German contact was shot dead. He had not been able to read the sheet of paper, but he could recall specific snatches of conversation.

  In one snippet, Dr. Yu and Professor Fried had discussed directions to Shangri-la.

  Yu had examined the directions contained in the document and asked if they were sufficient to get him to Shangri-la. Professor Fried had said that they were sufficient when combined with Yu’s knowledge of the legend. Almost superfluously, Fried had added that he could reach it within a week. China was a closed and backward country in 1961, and Fried would have had to travel on foot.

  How far could one walk in a week? Figuring twenty miles a day, one could only manage about three hundred miles a week. He pulled a map of China off his bookshelf. There were no significant mountains within three hundred miles of the coast.

  But CIA agents had lost track of Fried in the jungles of Southeast Asia. Fried must have entered China by land. Three hundred miles from China’s land borders could put him anywhere in western China.

  So where were the border crossings into China in 1961? Then he smacked himself on the forehead. China had taken over Tibet ten years earlier. Fried would have had to trek across the Tibetan Plateau using up all three hundred miles. Additionally, the brewing Sino-India Border War would have closed off all access from India.

  Which pointed to Fried having entered China from Vietnam or Burma. He traced several modern-day border crossings, drew a circle from those points with a radius of three hundred miles and outlined the area with a pencil.

  He checked that his office door was closed. He didn’t want anybody to know how low-tech his methods were. He sat back and looked over his markings. He had drawn three circles on the map. One assumed an approach from Vietnam, another from Burma, and a third, less convincingly, from India and over Tibet.

  Where was Shangri-la in that vast tract of land? Who ever ventured into the eastern Himalayas anyway? On a hunch, he turned to a more high-tech tool. He swiveled toward his computer and punched in the link to a mapping program available on CIA terminals. Much like a graph would chart data points, the CIA’s program could turn a map into a scatter chart, if given a database of locations.

  Next he summoned up a State Department database of missing Americans. His hunch was that if someone actually did stumble upon Shangri-la, they probably couldn’t return home. They would show up in the database as missing.

  There was an alarming cluster of dots near a town called Lijiang. In fact, it looked like a kind of Bermuda Triangle. He zoomed in on the cases. Numerous people hiking above a place called Tiger Leaping Gorge had never returned. The common connection in their stories was that the lost parties had disappeared behind a local mountain.

  He checked the history of that mountain. Interesting. Jade Dragon Snow Mountain was still a virgin peak. An American team had attempted to scale it twenty years back, but had encountered difficulties and given up. Ten years later, a Japanese team gave it their best effort, but was turned back.

  What an interesting piece of rock. Its thirteen peaks arranged from south to north formed a flying dragon. The highest peak was called the Steep Fan and towered a commanding 18,360 feet. All photographs of the mountain showed it from only one angle, the east, and none showed it from where the hikers had vanished. How intriguing.

  He picked up the phone to alert his son.

  Still no answer.

  Chapter 56

  Brad and May clung to the bank of a stream that flowed toward the town of Lijiang.

  Ahead lay a roundabout, brightly lit hotels, roadside restaurants, and a wide bridge swarming with police.

  A loose rock or sudden splash could give May and Brad away. They picked their way across rounded boulders, working in tandem to reach the bridge unseen. Several anxious moments later, they were safely underneath.

  Brad paused to catch his breath. “What are we doing here?” he whispered.

  May looked around, but didn’t answer.

  They were hiding from the police, their feet were inches from an icy stream, and the light at the far side of the bridge was distant, small, and fading fast.

  Then he felt May’s fingers creep across his back. Was she steadying herself? Afraid of the dark?

  At that moment he realized that whatever her reason to seek contact with him, they needed each other. Desperately.

  Life without marrying her was too lonely to even contemplate. They had to find her dad somewhere in the rugged mountains. They were so close, he could feel it.

  When they finally reached the other side of the bridge, he was looking at a whole new world. The stream emptied into a small lake with an arched bridge. Reflected on the water was a perfect white pyramid, a solitary mountain.

  He studied the peak more closely. Forest growth reached halfway up. Above that were rock and snow. The flat face was guarded on both sides by tall spires of rock. A permanent mantle of snow at the top was partially obscured by a
wispy cloud that hung around the summit. Above the cloud, the sky was as deep blue as the lake. It looked to Brad like…

  May was studying her ring. The summit was shaped like a diamond and reflected light brilliantly, but beyond that, it had the same eternal quality as the ring.

  He would have to thank Earl for talking him out of a lesser gem.

  “What is that mountain called?” he wondered aloud.

  Not daring to look back, they followed a walkway that circled the lake. Ancient music filled the air.

  He led May toward the clanging sound until they reached a large cobblestone square. An orchestra comprised of old men and women sat on a stage, sawing on and blowing into their instruments.

  Below the stage, a group of old women had spontaneously formed a line dance. They wore blue army hats and blue dresses with white bands crisscrossing their chests. It was amazing how many women wore native costume throughout the region, the Yi in black, the Bai in white, and these people in blue. It was as if Brad and May had entered a time warp.

  “These are the Naxi people,” May explained.

  Brad vaguely remembered learning about the old tribe. He had studied their ancient pictographic script, called dongba, and read about their amalgam of religions preserved for generations through their writings.

  An energetic woman led the dancers into an ever-tightening spiral. Willingly, smiling, the others followed.

  May took a seat at a stone table to watch. “The women are in charge in this culture.”

  He could see that.

  “The women run the family, the house, the business and the city.”

  “You’re kidding.” They must have been a handful for the Communists.

  “I am not kidding,” she said. “And the women do not marry.”

  “What?”

  “They just have boyfriends.”

  “Now I know you’re kidding.”

  “Really. The boyfriends sleep over at the woman’s house, then they return to their mothers during the day.”

  An outstanding arrangement for everyone but the men.

  “If a woman loses interest, the next night she hangs the man’s clothes outside the door.”

  Ouch.

  “The children have no brothers, no sisters. Only cousins. Many many cousins.”

  “So, no husbands means no fathers.” He had grown up without a real father around, and he knew how that felt.

  She agreed. “I love my father.”

  He knew. “And what about husbands?”

  She leaned up against him and tucked her head under his chin. “Silly face. I want to marry you.”

  “So this culture,” he said, and indicated the musicians and dancers, “this isn’t the way you want it?”

  “It is the way of the Naxi people. Not my way.”

  That brought some comfort.

  Despite the starkly different social scenario that May had just laid out, he began to warm to the music and the horde of dancers.

  What a spectacle the orchestra made on that quiet evening in Lijiang. It was a feast for the eyes and ears. A host spoke to the handful of onlookers. The musicians launched into the next song, Yunnan Dynasty music written by an emperor who was worried about a Mongol invasion.

  The dancing women took up seats among the tables. The cacophony of bizarre, ancient instruments seemed strangely comprehensible and harmonious to Brad’s ear. There were huge lute-like guitars, zithers, Chinese two-stringed violins called er hus, bamboo flutes, and all the requisite gongs, cymbals and drums. The piece sounded as fresh as the moment the emperor wrote it.

  Then they played a shepherd’s song. He looked from one old musician to another, all in native garb and wearing a serious expression as they plucked away. One grew a long white beard, another had drooping eyelids and a third wore photo-gray lenses.

  The next song brought out the amazing voice of a Tibetan woman who could fill the evening with a vibrant High E. He could imagine her singing to the mountains in her village.

  For once, the voice wasn’t screeching and the music didn’t clang. It expressed anger at invaders, a cleansing of the soul, a mingling of humans and nature.

  Then, a young man sang. His trembling voice could crescendo in an instant and fall back to utter silence.

  The performance might have been a ritual for them, but it riveted Brad.

  The last rays of sunlight fell on the snowy peak. Hungry, dirty, and nearly penniless, where could they spend the night?

  They took a bumpy road made of colored pebbles into the Old Town of Lijiang. Bridges of all sizes and shapes graced the maze of streets.

  People strolled throughout the wall-less city as if it were Disneyland. The absence of noisy, polluting vehicles lifted their spirits. The clean, thin air also helped, and the streets and wooden buildings remained warm to the touch from the sun.

  They followed red lanterns along a canal. Family-owned shops closed for the night and restaurants opened up.

  Suddenly he stiffened. “I need a battery for my cell phone.”

  May’s eyes shot up, her face nicely framed by her short hair.

  “We’ll have to wait until morning,” he said.

  She seemed confident in his decision. Did that mean she trusted him? It sure made a man feel proud.

  The bridges and lanterns grew sparser until all shops disappeared and they were among families and school children and women washing clothes. It felt like a North African medina. A visitor could easily get lost. Which was precisely what he wanted to do. He wanted to go where the police and soldiers least expected him.

  They found an inexpensive hotel that blended perfectly with the old town. In its courtyards, instead of vending machines and gift shops, he found running water, wicker chairs, and plants placed about in the open air.

  “Perfect,” he told the receptionist. “We’ll take a room.”

  Their quarters were small, like those of a boutique hotel, but with shutters opening out to the courtyard and moonlight streaming in. There was no place he’d rather be. Just taking a shower was a luxury.

  Later in bed, he rolled over and looked at the starry sky. The Naxi music still rang in his ears.

  “What is it?” May asked sleepily.

  “You know, piercing your ears is one of the stages of a child’s development and one of the key rituals in the Kalachakra initiation ceremony.”

  She yawned.

  “I wonder if the orchestra tonight qualified as ear-piercing.”

  “I have pierced ears.”

  Then he noticed that a string of stars formed a peak. Below that, all was dark. What a strange constellation. As lights extinguished in Lijiang and voices were replaced by water rushing under the cobblestone streets, he realized that he was not looking at a constellation, rather a dark mountain, the wonderful mountain he and May had gazed at earlier that day. It cast a long shadow over the town. What was behind that darkness, that obscurity?

  Tomorrow at six p.m., May would celebrate her birthday. After that, the wedding would be off. He rolled back and put an arm around her.

  They had found no trace of her father, and Liang seemed to have disappeared from the face of the earth. Something told him that they were nearby. They might be behind that mountain. And tomorrow, he would investigate.

  As a nearby French group belted out a drinking song, he breathed a heavy sigh. The tune and rhythm fit the soul of the village. It was a happy mixture of visitors and townspeople. Almost like paradise.

  Chapter 57

  Friday

  Brad awoke with the clarity of pure intent.

  It was Friday in Lijiang and all signs were pointing to the hills. Somehow, he and May would climb that mountain.

  “Wake up,” he said. “We need a battery for my cell phone and boots for mountain climbing.”

  He stepped out of the hotel that morning, his money nearly depleted, and looked around. There were no police in sight.

  “Good-bye Mrs. Ming,” the hotel receptionist called after him.r />
  He forced a smile and waved back.

  Returning to the main street in town, they found a shop that sold batteries. They bought one and loaded it into his cell phone. It worked.

  He stepped onto the street and navigated around the menu. At last he retrieved Earl’s number. No answer.

  Okay. Maybe he could reach his father in Virginia.

  Igor Sullivan picked up on the first ring. “I’ve been trying to reach you all day,” Sullivan said. “I need to know where you two are.”

  “We’re at a little place called Lijiang in western—”

  “Hold the phone. How did you get there so fast?”

  “We’ve been here all night.”

  “I’m impressed. Now, from where you’re standing, do you see a mountain?”

  “Yup. It dominates the city.”

  “It’s called Jade Dragon Snow Mountain,” Sullivan said.

  “That’s a mouthful.”

  “And that mountain is more than anyone can handle. She’s one of the last virgin peaks in China. Nobody has ever conquered her. An American team tried and was forced to turn back. A decade later, a Japanese team tried to climb her and failed.”

  “Well, I guess that doesn’t bode well for me.”

  “Son, I want you to climb that mountain.”

  Brad was confused. “Didn’t you just say…?”

  Sullivan explained. He had triangulated the German professor’s trip to that region. And consular reports had pinpointed the region behind the mountain as a sort of Chinese Bermuda Triangle.

  “So, would you rather have me fall off a mountain or just go ahead and disappear forever?” Brad said.

  “I know this may be the most perilous assignment you ever took on,” Sullivan said. “But the President of the United States is in danger, as well as many other world leaders. You’ve got to learn exactly what’s happening on the other side of that hill and stop it.”

  “Dad, it’s not a hill.”

  “I know. And…” Sullivan paused. “…there’s one more problem. It seems that your stepfather was released from custody.”