by Bob Frank
As the parade reached the valley floor, they were joined by several heavily armored SUV’s. Clay, Shali and the three Tibetan custodians were taken out of the trucks and escorted to the three waiting SUV’s. While waiting for the drivers to finish a five-minute break, Shali and Clay moved to the side of their SUV.
Clay said to Shali, “These vehicles have so much firepower, the Army Rangers still patrolling Afghanistan in Hummers would be envious. These are like rolling fortresses.”
Shali’s tone was serious and concerned: “Yeah, but that won’t help much if we drive off a cliff into a river.”
Surprised at her reaction, Clay replied in a soft voice, “It’s still bothering you about the driver, isn’t it?”
She looked at him in the glow of the headlights that still lit up the Tibetan daybreak. “And what do you expect? After we have served our purpose, are we too disposable?”
Clay reached over and stroked her arm. “I understand. It’s going to be alright. Hey, they are ready to go. Let’s get in.”
Two of the SUV’s pulled out in front of the four trucks and one pulled in behind. After reaching the main road, the convoy turned right to the northeast.
Clay said to Shali, “I expected to drive back to Tingri in the direction of Mount Everest. I remember seeing a Chinese military camp in Tingri, so I figured there must be an airfield close by. See if you can get anything out of our driver or the other guy riding shotgun.”
Shali had a cordial but brief discussion in Mandarin with the driver and the heavily armed security guard riding shotgun in the front seat.
“Shali, what did they say?” Clay asked.
“They politely asked me to sit back and relax because the ride could be as long as eight hours.”
“Wow. At this rate, I figure we’ll probably be driving one hundred fifty to two hundred miles or more.” Clay opened his laptop and viewed the screen for a moment. “Following the GPS, here and the direction we are going — two hundred miles out — ” His mumbles trailed off.
“I worry about you, sometimes.” Shali smiled as she shook her head and looked out the window.
After several minutes, Clay finally finished his sentence. “Look here. There is an extremely long airfield tucked in a valley between these surrounding mountains. The airstrip has to be at least three miles long — long enough to land a space shuttle! There appears to be a military camp on the south side. It looks unoccupied, but who knows how old this satellite photo is.”
Looking across at the laptop, Shali responded, “I see. And it’s just east of Shigatze, where we stopped overnight with the driver from Lhasa —”
A frown slipped across her face, eyebrows furrowed.
Clay said, “I remember seeing that airstrip as we approached Shigatze. What the hell could the Chinese use this monster airstrip in the Tibetan boon docks for?”
“I don’t know. Maybe it is for heavy transport planes for tanks and troops to suppress these troublesome Tibetans?”
“Hey, ask our friends if we’re going to this airfield.”
Shali leaned forward and casually asked them in Chinese, “Wo men dau XiGaZe feijijang ma?”
Their reaction showed astonishment at how these foreigners could possibly know where they were going. After regaining their composure, the two Tibetans in the front seat looked at each other and then glanced back at Shali. The passenger riding shotgun looked directly at Shali, slowly tapped his fingers on his AK-47 and then gave a single nod in answer to her question. Then he turned back to face the windshield and made no other gesture or verbal response.
Shali looked at Clay and said, “Shigatze airfield. That’s the destination.”
“It seems a long way in the opposite direction from our safe haven in Kathmandu, but I guess we are just cargo at this point. Don’t argue, huh?”
The convoy continued bumping and weaving along the valley road for another four hours. They rumbled through many small villages, each with its own tattered temples. As they drove through each village, the smell of coal sulphur filled the vehicles and then dissipated as soon as they reached the open countryside again.
In a barren stretch of road tucked between several surrounding mountains, the convoy came to an abrupt stop on the roadside. The drivers got out to stretch and motioned for their human cargo to get out. The drivers took out the jerry cans of fuel and filled the tanks of the trucks and SUV’s. The sharp smell of diesel fuel filled the air.
Standing along the side of the road, watching the activity, Clay said to Shali, “It seems odd they are carrying their own fuel. We passed several gas stations in the larger villages along the way.”
“Evidently it’s less conspicuous to refuel their trucks out here in isolation, away from prying eyes.”
Some of the men pulled boxes of food out of the trucks and opened them up. They passed wrapped up packets of dried yak meat around.
“Hey, Shali, when we get back do you think we can find big bags of this yak jerky at Costco or Sam’s Club?”
She smiled at his quip.
Large aluminum cans of now lukewarm boiled vegetables were opened up. The salty bland soup was poured into bowls for the hungry drivers, guards and passengers. Tall aluminum thermos-bottles of warm, sweet yak milk were also opened. The milk was poured into tin cups and handed out. Most of the men and guards began passing around pungent spice-laced cigarettes, and then, seemingly one by one, the men all relieved themselves of bodily fluids along the side of the road, with no modesty for Shali.
In less than thirty minutes, the vehicles were reloaded and the convoy was back on the road. In another three hours, they were driving through Shigatze.
Shali nudged Clay to look at the small hotel where they had stayed on the inbound trip well over a month ago. With eyes narrowed, he smiled slightly, as if seeing a familiar old friend. He rolled down the window to smell the air. “There’s the burning blocks of coal again. Such memories, huh?”
The convoy barreled through the main street of Shigatze almost without slowing. Dogs scurried out of the street to avoid being run over.
“Did you notice the total absence of any military or police so far?” Clay asked Shali. “I don’t understand. This time, there were virtually no uniforms anywhere, and not a single checkpoint. No soldiers; no police.”
“Someone obviously got to the authorities. I’ll bet it cost a bundle to bribe that many bureaucrats and army officers.”
* * * ~~~ * * *
Shigatze Airfield, Tibet
Eventually, the convoy pulled up near the mysteriously long runway in the middle of Tibet. Two nondescript, four-engine military style cargo planes sat quietly on the tarmac. With the orchestration of a well-rehearsed Broadway play, two trucks pulled up to the side cargo-doors of each plane. Clay, Shali and the three custodian monks were dropped off next to one of the planes, along with a contingent of four security guards who had been riding in the trucks. The SUV’s then drove off to surrounding positions, each about one hundred meters from the planes.
The cases were quickly offloaded from the trucks, inventoried and reloaded into the cargo planes. The yellow labeled boxes went into one plane and the red labeled boxes into the other. The cases were then carefully and tightly strapped down with heavy cargo netting. The entire transfer was orchestrated as if it had been rehearsed many times.
The five travelers remained chatting beside one plane as the logistics were executed. Just as the loading was finalized, they heard a loud ruckus coming from the side of the airfield near a cluster of buildings. Suddenly, three Chinese military Humvee type vehicles burst out from the side of the buildings toward the planes, kicking up a trail of dust.
The escort guards positioned in the SUV’s immediately jumped to action in their own high-powered machines. Tires squealed on the airfield tarmac.
Looking concerned, Clay said to Shali, “Looks like somebody didn’t get the word.”
Squinting into the dusk of the setting sun, Shali said, “You’re telling me? T
his is not looking good, Chief.”
The top panels of the three Tibetan SUV’s popped open and guards wielding machine guns emerged. The six heavily armed tactical vehicles screamed together as if caught in a vortex. The Tibetans burst out with blazing machine fire, pelting the Chinese Humvees with bullet spray. The Humvees skidded as they scattered in different directions, each attempting to evade the Tibetan onslaught. Their own machine gunners suddenly emerged from their top gun ports and returned blasts of machine-gun spray.
To the bystanders beside the planes, this seemed like a slow-motion death dance of six fire-belching vehicles, all intertwined in a skidding dance of destruction.
Clay and Shali were jerked out of their mesmerized state when the security guards grabbed them. Shali was shoved into the nearest plane with two of the monks while Clay was rushed off with one of the monks to the other plane. In all of the excitement, neither of them had heard the yelling around them or the rapid wind-up and growing whine of the planes’ engines. Even before the cargo doors were closed and latched, the planes’ engines began to scream as the pilots pushed the throttles full forward.
The guards pushed their passengers into the cargo seats on the sides of the planes and secured their seat belts before running to their own seats. The planes twisted about on the airfield in an attempt to escape the gun battle still blasting away outside.
“The distinction between the past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.”
Albert Einstein
Chapter 19
In the dusk light, the two gray cargo planes roared down the runway, one tucked closely behind the other. They lifted off the runaway and headed east toward Lhasa in a shallow climb before veering sharply to the right and slipping between two mountain peaks. Neither Clay nor Shali had any idea what route they were taking to their destination in Kathmandu. Strapped onto the canvas cargo benches in their separate planes, they could see nothing but the mountain peaks that flashed by the tiny windows.
Suddenly, without warning, Shali’s plane banked hard to the left, and then to the right. She got a quick glimpse of Clay’s plane peeling off in the opposite direction; they were taking two different routes to Kathmandu. Nevertheless, they were both relieved to have escaped the firefight taking place at that long airfield outside of Shigatze.
Strapped into the violently shaking cargo seat and numb from thirty-six hours of non-stop activity, Clay drifted into a daydream about being an American Airborne paratrooper. His fantasy flashed him to June 1944, on the way to the battlefields behind the Normandy beaches. Bouncing around a noise-racked cargo plane, Clay anxiously waited for the green jump-light when he, his Tibetan monk buddy and two armed guards would jump out of the plane into a hail of German gunfire over Northern France. But an extra hard pitch to the left snapped Clay out of his daydream and back to reality.
The plane jerked violently back and forth, dodging in and out of mountains, obviously flying low to evade Chinese radar. Clay noticed the Tibetan custodian sitting next to him was wide-eyed and obviously concerned, and yet he was staring at the near ninety coffin-like boxes strapped in the center of their plane. His concern was not about his own safety; he was clearly worried about the boxes strapped under the netting. The two of them sat across from the watchful eyes of security guards toting AK-47’s, but everyone remained tightly strapped in their seats to prevent being thrown into the ceiling or walls of the plane.
Through the small hatch windows in the side of the plane, Clay saw the sides of mountains flash by on both sides. The wingtips dipped and bobbed as the plane wove through the valleys. Sometimes the wings appeared to just miss the jagged snow-covered slices of mountains. Clay found it more amusing and comforting to sit back and enjoy the carnival ride rather than think of plowing into the side of a mountain. He wondered how Shali was doing in the trailing cargo plane; or at least, he thought it was trailing his plane.
When looking at the satellite map earlier that afternoon, Clay had calculated that Nepal airspace was barely one hundred miles from the Shigatze airfield. At an estimated two hundred miles per hour, he figured they should be over Nepal thirty minutes after takeoff. But they had only been in the air for twenty-five minutes and were probably flying slower because of the evasive maneuvers.
Suddenly fifteen or twenty very loud whooshing sounds came from the sides and rear of his plane. The plane jacked over to the right almost ninety degrees, as if standing on a wing tip. The plane pulled several G’s in the ensuing hard pull to the right. The two passengers and two guards were thrown around in their strapped seats like rag dolls. Clay saw the ninety cases of ancient documents straining against the tightly strapped cargo netting.
Seconds after the whooshing sounds, there was a loud explosion outside the plane. Pieces of shrapnel pierced the side of the plane’s fuselage, and Clay saw a huge fireball out of the windows on the left side. His first thought was they had hit a mountain, but then he realized they would have been cremated instantly; the explosion had to be an air-to-air missile fired from a Chinese jet fighter. The whooshing sound must have been anti-missile chaff or flares shot from the back of the cargo plane to defend against the missiles.
Whomp. The cargo plane veered hard to the left, pitching the passengers to the opposite direction in their chairs. Whoosh whoosh whoosh — there were more flares and chaff, and then another explosion on the right side of the plane. With a sudden jolt of adrenaline, an insane number of crazy questions rushed through Clay’s mind in seconds: Would his life insurance company pay the policy to his nieces and nephews if he was blown out of the sky by a Chinese jet fighter? Had he paid his last insurance premium? How many canisters of chaff and flares does this Goddamned airplane carry? How many missiles are on a friggin’ Chinese jet fighter? How far back is that fighter? How many mountains are between us? How many mountains can the pilot put between us and that fighter — or fighters? How many fighters are really back there, anyway? How the hell far are we from Nepal airspace, for Christ’s sake? Does the pilot have a healthy heart? Where the hell is Shali’s plane and did they shoot her down? Just what the hell am I doing here? Did my mother raise a fool or what?
As fast as the explosive action began, it suddenly stopped. The plane settled into level flight and the engines slowed to a steady drone. The cargo plane started a slow climb to a higher altitude. The word “Nepal?” went through Clay’s mind.
The rattled and shaken passengers looked at each other in disbelief and relief. The three normally bronze-skinned Asian guards were as white as albinos.
A few minutes later, the door to the cockpit opened slowly and the Asian-looking pilot confidently emerged and took a few steps into the cargo area. Clay could see the co-pilot casually flipping switches and adjusting gauges in the cockpit.
The pilot yawned, reached his arms high into the air and slowly stretched his arms to the left and then to the right. He looked directly at the still shaking passengers, smiled a huge grin and gave them all a double thumbs-up before turning to the left, opening the door to the toilet and vomiting his guts into the stainless-steel toilet bowl.
As the pilot was bending over the toilet, Clay noticed the crotch of the pilot’s pants was soaked in urine. He pointed and laughed out loud from relief. His three fellow travelers also burst into a nervous laughter. Even knowing his words could not be heard or understood, Clay yelled out, “I feel better than I have in months. I’m ready to go home.”
When the pilot emerged, Clay waved at him to get his attention and then made an inquisitive hand motion about the status of the second plane. The pilot smiled and flashed a circular okay with his thumb and forefinger. Clay sat back in his jump seat and smiled with relief, knowing that Shali’s plane had also made it safely out of Chinese airspace.
About ninety minutes later, Clay noticed the drone of the engines slowly drop from a roar to a whine. Total darkness had set in and twinkling lights could now be seen through the small port holes in the side of the plane. They had
dropped significantly in altitude, and he could tell they were getting fairly close to the ground.
Clay nudged the monk sitting next to him, pointed at the port hole and asked in a near shout, “Kathmandu?”
The old monk smiled and nodded his head.
Within minutes they felt the bump as they hit the tarmac and then heard the bouncing squeal of the plane’s tires. The loud roar of reverse thrusters slowed the cargo plane to a crawl. The plane made a quick left turn off from the runway onto a taxiway. Clay prayed Shali’s plane was close behind, and he strained to look out the port holes from his seat.
The plane lumbered along for what seemed a long time. The heavily armed security guards became obviously anxious at this point, unbuckled their belts, picked up their AK-47’s and moved to the side doors.
Getting antsy to get up himself, Clay talked to himself in a low voice, “Please remain seated until the aircraft comes to a complete stop. Be careful when opening the overhead bins. Thank you for flying Drukpa Airlines.”
The two guards looked at Clay in a confused scowl and then looked at the monk. There was a casual exchange of dialogue that Clay could only imagine was about his self-conversation.
The plane slowly pulled up to a hangar at the far end of the airfield and came to a stop. The crew chief came back from the cockpit, opened the side cargo door and flipped down the steps. The guards jumped out of the door and posted themselves on either side of the plane.
A neatly groomed, well-dressed Asian man climbed the steps to the cargo plane and walked over to the Tibetan monk. They bowed and shook hands, and then began a hearty verbal exchange as obviously long-time friends.