Beth nodded.
They flew on.
Three hours more and they came to an enormous crack in the crust of the earth. A huge canyon sat athwart the path, and the truck and trailer were beside it. A rope stretched across the chasm. Again, no sign of life.
“Pray they left the gas,” Beth said.
This landing spot was even rougher than the one with the shoot-out, but there were no bandits this time. No Germans, either. Nobody at all, just the sighing wind of an emptiness even the Tibetans didn’t want. Beth topped off her tank with the German spare fuel while Hood got more by siphoning the German truck dry. She put three canisters in the biplane’s storage compartment while he hid the rest behind a rock. If they survived, this was the only way they’d get back.
Then they took off again, the engine throaty as they clawed over the precipitous canyon. It was getting late.
There was a range of snowy hills they barely skimmed over, boot tracks in the snow, and then a barren basin. The Kunluns beyond were a frozen rampart that stretched as far as the eye could see. When they saw the river, Hood pointed and Beth nodded, following it. The waterfall was a white beacon miles away, and when they flew near, it seemed to be spurting from the cliff face. The canyon was a cleft too narrow to see into. Odd.
They circled. Down at the base of the waterfall, Hood spotted abandoned bundles of equipment.
“Go as high as you can! See if we can fly above the source of the river and get into the mountains!”
They pivoted upward like a climbing bird. There was a snowy saddle at the top of the cliffs that led toward white haze. A jagged black line represented the rift in the rock below. As they passed over it, he got brief glimpses of racing gray water.
Were the Germans somewhere in that chasm?
Beth rapped him on the shoulder and pointed. Several miles east, at the outer base of the Kulun range, there was a wisp of smoke. They saw a tracery of wall there.
Did someone live near the gate of Shambhala?
Then they saw the flash of the explosion, deep in the crack of the river.
“They’re here!” he shouted.
“Where?” She peered over the side. The crevice was narrower in places than her wings.
“They must be pushing through. See if we can fly over the saddle. It must be where they’re going.”
“We’re already at our limit.”
“Climb anyway.”
Shaking her head, she aimed where he pointed. “Pray.”
Mountain piled upon mountain. They skimmed the snow. The engine was laboring in the thin air, wheels dipping toward a crash… and then the ground plunged abruptly away, sheer cliffs again, and they popped out over a hidden valley.
Shambhala was like a well. The vale was shadowy, ringed by towering peaks with glaciers that fed the river. Yet at the bottom it also had an improbable wash of green, totally unexpected in October. Somehow the basin below must be warmer than the bitter norm.
Beth dipped and circled, rotating around the curve of the mountain bowl. There was a party of people down there, hurrying through a jumble of old ruins.
“Can you land?”
“Where? Look at that mess.”
“But the Germans must have blown the only way in.”
“One of the ways, unless your Germans and your old girlfriend don’t plan on ever coming back.” She glanced around. Everywhere, mountains higher than their maximum altitude, her biplane a fly in a cup. Pass a few miles in either direction and you’d never suspect this secret hole was here.
“Christ,” Hood cursed. “We can’t climb over those cliffs, either.”
“There is another way, college boy, but you ain’t gonna like it.” She kept them rotating. The party below had disappeared.
“What?”
“Jump.”
“I wish.” He looked down. If only he could step onto those snowy slopes, maybe he could pick his way down…
“Wish granted.” She unbuckled straps, put the plane straight and level for a moment, half stood, and wiggled out of her parachute. “Tie the straps as tight as you can. When you fall, yank that cord there. You don’t have much room, and need time for the canopy to deploy. You’ll still land hard.”
“I’ve never used a parachute!”
“Neither have I.”
Hood groaned. “There’s no alternative?”
“This is what you get for chasing your Tibetan sweetheart. I’ll try landing back on the plain we crossed and check out that smoke. No house has only one door.”
He closed his eyes. “Igloos do.”
“So you’d better hope the Shambhalans weren’t Eskimo. Hurry up, we’re wasting gas! Pretty soon it might occur to Raeder to start shooting at you.”
Hood lengthened the straps for his frame and awkwardly put the parachute on. It felt bulky and flimsy at the same time. “To think I was bored.”
“What are you complaining about? Now I don’t have a parachute at all. Go, go, it’s getting dark!”
He glanced around. A cirque of mountains, frigid air, strange greenness below, enemies who’d vanished. The sun had long since set behind the mountains, and all was pale gray. Too awkward to jump with his rifle. He checked his Duncan Hale-issued government. 45. Taking a breath and trying to think of as little as possible, he grasped the rim of the cockpit and boosted himself out, tensing as the wind hit him full force. He clawed for a strut, trying to get in position to jump. Every instinct screamed not to let go.
But then Beth abruptly tilted the biplane and the cold air plucked him off.
Hood fell toward Shambhala.
27
Eldorado Mine, Cascade Mountains
September 6, Present Day
R ominy plummeted, slid, and dropped again. It happened so suddenly, in such disorienting darkness, that it was over before she could scream. She and Jake tumbled into a tangle at the base of some mine shaft, the rotting wood of an old lid piled around them. As her wits returned from the blast of adrenaline, the real fear began. What if they couldn’t get out?
“Rominy! Are you okay?”
“I can move.” She groaned, but when she tested her limbs they all seemed to work, thank God. “Barely.” She coughed. “I’m covered with dirt, my body aches, and I can barely see. I think my knees are getting scraped down to the bone.”
“I’ve got more bandages.”
Dim light filtered down from where the cave-in had occurred above. It was like looking at the top of a well.
“You know, you’re the worst date I’ve ever had.”
Jake coughed, too. “Ditto.”
She looked around. They’d tumbled at least forty feet and were in a wider cavity about ten feet high, which meant it was impossible to jump up to the narrow tunnel they’d fallen down. The walls and ceiling were rock, the floor dirt and rubble, and the darkness in every direction but up was profound. “This is very bad, Jake.” She tried to keep any tremor from her voice. “What now?”
He stood up, weaving a moment from dizziness before straightening and brushing himself off. “I’m guessing you found where X marks the spot. Maybe Great-grandpa came back to be some kind of hermit miner.”
“Great.” She wobbled to a stand, too. Yep, nothing broken. Not that it mattered if they couldn’t get back out. “It didn’t occur to him to dig sideways?”
“I don’t know. Maybe this is an old pioneer mine he found.”
“So why is it on his fingerprint map?”
“You’re asking all the right questions. Fortunately for us, I’m a Boy Scout, remember?” They’d fallen with their packs and he rooted inside for a moment before digging out a flashlight. “I’ll keep the other in reserve. Let’s see where this thrill ride goes.” The beam was as welcome as coffeehouse neon on a cold Seattle night. Gloom shrank back to reveal a horizontal shaft that must run toward the cliff face they’d spied from above; the old horizontal shaft would have opened to a view of Eldorado.
Mine timbers at the ceiling sagged from age. In a hundred feet, the tunnel ended disappointingly in a wall of rubble and snapped bracing.