“It doesn’t matter anymore,” she said flatly.
“Excuse me?”
Mercer got to his feet and crossed to where Sykes and his men waited by the secret exit. “We only have five weeks before La Palma blows.”
“What? Jesus! It’s going to take two just to trek out of the valley.”
“I know.”
Sykes thought about that for a minute. “My orders were to get that information to Lasko. It makes me no never mind if the answer’s five weeks or ten minutes.” He yanked the Velcro flap off his watch to check the time. “It’s oh four hundred. Once we get to the surface, we can rest up until noon and then start for Nepal. I’ve got a feeling the secret’s out about this place and pretty soon the Chinese army will come swarming.”
Mercer nodded. “No matter how bad a mass evacuation is going to be, it’s the best we can do. We need to give Ira every extra second we can. We might want to consider splitting up. I’m in no shape for a trek over the Himalayas. The wound in my back isn’t as bad as it feels but it is going to slow me down.”
“That’s not a good idea.”
“Booker, every extra minute you give Admiral Lasko means an additional thousand lives saved. I’m going to hold you up.”
Sykes said nothing but it was clear he knew Mercer was right. His men, though exhausted by the firefight, were in peak physical condition. They could do the trek out of China in half the time if they didn’t need to worry about Mercer. “What about you two?”
“I think Tisa should go with you. Maybe I can convince her. I’d follow you as soon as I was ready.”
“And if the Chinese show up before then?”
“It’s a risk I have to take.”
Sykes laughed. “I still haven’t figured out if you’re brave or an idiot.”
“Sometimes there isn’t much of a difference.”
“Hoo-yah.”
Mercer returned to Tisa’s side, dropping to his knees next to her. His back had stiffened and the movement opened the scab. Warm blood trickled into the waistband of his fatigues. “Captain Sykes and his men are going to run for the border. They can make it a lot quicker without me. I want you to go with them. You know these mountains. They need you as a guide.”
She sniffed. “I’m not leaving you. I can talk to some of the villagers. A couple of them can get Sykes to Nepal. You and I will go together when you’re strong enough.”
“Tisa, I—”
“This is an argument you aren’t going to win, so don’t bother fighting it. I’m staying with you.”
“There’s a good chance the Chinese are going to find Rinpoche-La. The fire could have been spotted by a helicopter patrol.”
“Mercer, you forget I grew up here. I know where all the hiding places are. I can keep you safe if they come.”
Just like Sykes knew Mercer was right about leaving him behind, Mercer knew Tisa was correct now. “You’re pretty remarkable, you know that?”
She touched his face. “So are you. Would you ask Captain Sykes if one of his men could carry my father. I want to see he gets a proper burial.”
Mercer was about to volunteer for the duty himself, but he was in no condition even if her father weighed no more than ninety pounds. “They’d be honored, I’m sure.”
Sykes kept point as they returned to the oracle chamber in case they encountered pockets of resistance. The oracle had demolished itself. The outer sheath was split in dozens of places, and much of it had fallen off the machine so now it resembled a shattered eggshell. The mechanisms inside were twisted into unrecognizable shapes. Pipes carrying superheated steam that powered the oracle spewed jets of vapor that were quickly filling the lofty chamber. The walls of the cavern ran with condensation and the temperature had climbed past one twenty. The huge space was becoming a scalding sauna.
Tisa paused at the base of the ruined machine. “Good,” she said after a moment. “I’m glad it’s gone.”
“I can understand how you feel,” Mercer agreed. “The temptation to abuse its power is just too great. It’s a testament to your Order that it wasn’t subverted long before now.”
The hidden entrance that Tisa had found as a child lay on the far side of the cavern. It took forty minutes just to locate it and a further two hours to negotiate the twisting tunnels. She didn’t remember the exact route to the surface and led them down countless dead-end branches.
They came out in a cave high atop a craggy bluff midway between the village and the monastery. The sun was just rising, a pale wash that barely penetrated the valley. The air was cold and laced with the heavy smell of burned wood. Nothing remained of the monastery except a few upright support timbers and a smoking fifty-foot mound of debris.
There were maybe two hundred huts in the village clustered around a central square. From their vantage it appeared the people were packing up to leave. They too understood that the fire would eventually attract attention. Their simple life of supporting the monks who tended the oracle was over. Several of the wood buildings were aflame. The villagers would leave nothing for the army when they came.
“Are they loyal to your father or your brother?” Mercer asked.
Tisa was helping position her father’s body for when they came back to get him. “The Lama. I doubt any of them know Luc tried to take over the Order.”
“So they’ll help us?”
“I believe so.”
Sykes shot Grumpy and Happy a look to tell them to stay alert as they descended the trail to the valley floor.
They were halfway to the village when the eerie morning silence was shattered. The narrow confines of the valley masked the approach of the helicopters until they burst over the rim. There were three of them, two huge Russian-made Hind-D gunships and a French-built Aerospeciale Gazelle in civilian colors. Laboring at the high altitude, the three helos were still as nimble as dragonflies.
Mercer and his party were caught in the open. The nearest cover was a hundred yards away and one of the Hinds was thundering straight for them. The other swooped low over the village, its multiple missile racks and chin-mounted machine cannon at the ready.
The Delta commandos had dropped flat at the first sign of the choppers and watched their approach through their gunsights — a purely reflexive action since the 5.56-millimeter rounds from the M-4s were useless against the heavily armored Hind. Mercer and Tisa remained on their feet. After a moment, Sykes and his men realized the futility of their position and also got up, holding their weapons low against their bodies in a nonthreatening pose. There was no place to run and no way to fight their way out.
“How did they get here so fast?” Grumpy shouted over the helo’s deafening roar, his clothes and hair rippling under the onslaught of the blades’ downdraft.
“No idea,” Mercer said, keeping his eyes fixed on the pilot hovering twenty feet above him.
The other Hind wheeled away from the village. With the first gunship providing cover, the second chopper flew within thirty yards of the team and settled on its landing wheels. A side door crashed open and eight Chinese soldiers outfitted for cold-weather combat jumped to the ground. Each carried China’s type-87 assault rifles, a 5.8-millimeter bull-pup design that was so new that only the country’s special forces had been issued them.
Sykes, Grumpy and Happy slowly unslung their M-4s and let them drop to the ground, keeping their hands in the air. The leader of the Chinese commandos made a gesture with the barrel of his rifle for the team to step away from their weapons.
“What’s going to happen?” Tisa asked.
Sykes spoke out of the side of his mouth. “Four armed Americans and a Chinese national caught in a secret valley that housed an ancient monastery the government had not known about? I suspect they’ll congratulate us on our discovery. Then shoot us.”