Once that happened, the loss of life would be horrific.
Raising from his knees, the Dalai Lama walked over to a table and rang a bell. Almost instantly the door opened and the head of the Kusun Depon, the Dalai Lama’s personal bodyguards, appeared. Through the open door he could see several Sing Gha warriors. The monastic policemen lent a terrifying presence. Each was over six feet tall, wore a fearsome mustache, and was dressed in a black padded suit that made them appear even larger and more invincible.
Several Dogkhyi, the fierce Tibetan mastiff guard dogs, stood on their haunches at attention.
“Please summon the oracle,” the Dalai Lama said quietly.
FROM his house in Lhasa, Langston Overholt III was monitoring the deteriorating conditions. He stood alongside the radio operator as the man adjusted the dial.
“Situation critical, over.”
The radio operator turned the dial to reduce the static.
“Believe red rooster will enter the henhouse, over.”
The operator watched the gauges carefully.
“Need immediate positive support, over.”
Again a lag as the operator adjusted the dial.
“I recommend eagles and camels, over.”
The man stood mute as the radio warbled and the green gauges returned to a series of wavelike motions. The words were out in the ether now; the rest was out of their control. Overholt wanted airplanes—and he wanted them now.
THE oracle, Dorje Drakden, was deep in a trance. The setting sun came through the small window high on the wall of the temple and cast a path of light that ended at an incense holder. The wisps of smoke danced on the beam of light and a strange, almost cinnamon smell filled the air. The Dalai Lama sat cross-legged on a pillow against a wall a few feet from Drakden, who was hunched over, knees down, with his forehead on the wood floor. Suddenly, in a deep voice, the oracle spoke.
“Leave tonight! Go.”
Then, still with his eyes closed, still in a trance, he rose, walked over to a table and stopped exactly one foot away. Then he reached down, picked up a quill pen, dipped it in ink and drew a detailed map on a sheet of paper before collapsing to the ground.
The Dalai Lama rushed to the oracle’s side, lifted his head and patted his cheek. Slowly, the man began to awaken. After sliding a pillow under his head, the Dalai Lama rose and poured a cup of water from an earthenware pitcher. Carrying the cup back to the oracle, he placed it under his lips.
“Sip, Dorje,” he said quietly.
Slowly, the older man recovered and pulled himself to a seated position. As soon as the Dalai Lama was sure the oracle was on the mend, he walked over to the table and stared at the ink drawing.
It was a detailed map showing his escape route from Lhasa to the Indian border.
OVERHOLT had been born into his career. At least one Overholt had served in every war the United States had fought since the Revolutionary War. His grandfather had been a spy in the Civil War, his father during World War I, and Langston the third had served in the OSS in World War II before switching to the CIA when it’d been formed in 1947. Overholt was now thirty-three, with a fifteen-year history of espionage.
In all that time, Overholt had never seen a situation quite this ominous. This was not a king or a queen in peril, not a pontiff or dictator. This was the head of a religion. A man who was a God-king, a deity, a leader that traced his lineage back to A.D. 1351. If something did not happen quickly, the communist scourge would soon be taking him prisoner. Then the human chess match would be over.
IN Mandalay, Burma, Overholt’s message was received and forwarded to Saigon where it was transferred to Manila, then over a secure underwater cable to Long Beach, California, then on to Washington, D.C.
As the situation in Tibet continued to deteriorate, the CIA started to assemble a force in Burma. The group was not large enough to defeat the Chinese, just large enough to slow them down until more heavily armed ground troops could be brought to bear.
Disguised as a front company named Himalayan Air Services, the armada consisted of fourteen C-47s: ten that could drop supplies and four that had just been converted to first-generation gunships. This force was augmented with six F-86 fighters and a lone, fresh-off-the-assembly-line Boeing B-52 heavy bomber.
ALAN Dulles sat in the Oval Office, puffing on his pipe and pointing out the situation to President Eisenhower. Then the CIA director sat back and let the president think for a moment. Several minutes passed in silence.
“Mr. President,” he said at last, “the CIA took the liberty of arranging a first-strike force in Burma. If you say the word, they’ll be airborne in an hour.”
Since his election in 1952, Eisenhower had faced the McCarthy hearings, the first advisors into Vietnam and a heart attack. He’d had to order ten thousand troops to Little Rock, Arkansas, to enforce integration; witness the Soviets take the lead in space; and have his vice president stoned by hostile crowds in Latin America. Now Cuba had a communist leader only ninety miles from U.S. soil. He was weary.
“No, Alan,” he said quietly, after a pause. “I learned as a general that you have to know how to pick your fights. We need to stay clear of this Tibet situation right now.”
Dulles rose and shook Eisenhower’s hand. “I’ll notify my men,” he said.
In Overholt’s command post in Lhasa, the ashtray on the table near the radio was filled with the stubs of unfiltered cigarettes. Hours passed, with only the confirmation that the radio transmission had been received. Every half hour, Tibetan messengers delivered intelligence. Visual reconnaissance reported that the crowds outside the palaces near Lhasa were growing minute by minute, but the messengers were unable to take an accurate count. Tibetans continued to stream down from the mountains, armed with sticks, rocks and knives. The milling mass would be cannon fodder for the well-armed Chinese.
So far the Chinese had taken no action, but the reports mentioned troop buildups on the roads leading into the fabled city. Overholt had seen this same scenario unfold five years ago in Guatemala, when a crowd supporting the anticommunist rebels under Carlos Armas had suddenly sparked. Chaos had ensued. Forces under President Jacobo Arbenz had begun to fire into the crowd to restore order, and before dawn broke, the hospitals and morgues had been filled to capacity. Overholt had organized the demonstration and the knowledge clouded his mind like a shroud.
Just then the radio crackled.
“Top Hat negative, over.”
Overholt’s heart skipped a beat. The planes he sought were not coming.
“Papa Bear will okay sweeping the path if critically necessary during extraction. Advise on departure and subsequent travel, over.”
Eisenhower said not to attack Lhasa, Overholt thought, but Dulles has agreed to cover the escape out of Tibet on his own, if it came to that. If he worked things right, Overholt thought, he wouldn’t need to put his boss’s ass on the line.
“Sir?” the radio operator asked.
Overholt was jarred from his thoughts.
“They’re expecting a reply,” the operator said quietly.
Overholt reached for the microphone. “Acknowledged and agreed,” Overholt said, “and thank Papa Bear for the gesture. We’ll call from the road. Closing office, over.”
The radio operator stared up at Overholt. “Guess that’s that.”
“Break it all down,” Overholt said quietly, “we’ll be leaving soon.”