“That’s the problem,” Seng said loudly over the sound of the helicopter hovering to land. “The lieutenant doesn’t know where it was stored. He only knows it exists.”
Cabrillo reached into his coat pocket and removed a Cuban cigar. Biting off the end, he spit the plug to the side, then reached for a Zippo lighter with the other hand and did a single-hand light. He puffed the cigar to life before speaking.
“I have a feeling, Mr. Seng, it’s going to be a long day.”
MURPHY was angry. Gampo had left him alone in the tent with a weak and bleeding Gurt. If this was the way the feared Dungkarreacted to blood, they’d lose this war before it ever started. The Oregonwas sending help, but even at the fastest cruising speed the Bell could fly, that would be hours away. Gurt, his friend and fellow warrior, was growing weaker by the minute. His skin was an ugly gray and he was drifting in and out of consciousness.
Just then the flap of the tent was pulled back and Gampo entered.
He was carrying a handful of long-bladed grass clippings in one hand and what looked like a wet dirt clod in the other, and under his chin was a chunk of meat from some unspecified beast.
“Where the hell did you go?” Murphy said.
“Stir the fire in the stove,” Gampo said quietly, setting down the grass and mud, “then add these to the fire,” he added, removing a leather pouch with powdered minerals inside. “We need a good amount of smoke inside the tent. Once you have that done,” he said, pointing to the meat, “cook that in with the tea and make me a meat broth.”
Murphy stared at Gampo as if he were crazy.
But the Tibetan was already busy cleaning and bandaging Gurt’s wound, so Murphy did as he was told. Two minutes later, the tent was filled with a smoke that smelled somewhat like cinnamon cloves washed in lemon. Three more minutes and Gampo stood upright and stared at Murphy. Then he motioned to help him prop Gurt up. The grass and mud had dried into a pair of oblong bandages front and rear. They adhered to his skin like plaster of paris laced with glue. Gurt’s eyes began to flicker open and he drew a few deep breaths.
“Give him the broth of the bear,” Gampo said. “I’ll go gas up your flying ship.”
JUST across the border of Russia and Mongolia, General Alexander Kernetsikov was breathing deeply of the diesel-smoke-tinged air. After leaving Novosibirsk, his tank column had blown through the Altai Region like a top-fueler down a drag strip. Kernetsikov was riding in the lead tank with his head out of a forward hatch. He was wearing a helmet with a headset so he could communicate with his other officers, and a uniform with enough ribbons to decorate a Christmas tree. In his mouth was an unlit Cuban cigar. In his hand was a GPS that he was using to track the column’s speed.
The distance to the Tibet border was five hundred miles. They were traveling at thirty-five miles per hour.
Kernetsikov stared overhead as a flight of fighters crisscrossed high in the air above. Then he called his intelligence officer over the radio to learn what was new. The weather was due to change to snow sometime in the next few hours. Other than that, all was the same.
IN Macau, Sung Rhee was reaching the end of his patience.
Marcus Friday had learned that his plane had been found and had ordered it to return to pick him up and fly him out of the city. Stanley Ho was still angry about the theft of his priceless Buddha. The later discovery that the one Friday had recovered was fake just added to his rage.
After the Chinese navy had realized that the cargo ship they had illegally stopped on the high seas had nothing to do with the incident in Macau, they had broadened their circle of observation and tracked the Oregonto Vietnam.
Po had made a few calls to a friend he knew in the Da Nang police department and learned that a C-130 had left Da Nang for Bhutan. A few more calls and some wired bribes had led him to a rumor that the group that had stolen the statue was on their way to Tibet.
Po was a Chinese police officer and Tibet was a Chinese region, so Po had decided to follow the trail. Flying from Macau to Chengdu, he had arrived on the last flight in Gonggar yesterday evening. By the time he’d arrived at the office of the Public Security Bureau, Tibet’s police force, it was closed. So he’d checked into a hotel and waited for morning.
This morning was chaotic in Lhasa, but he’d managed to meet with the chief of police and requisitioned half a dozen men to help his investigation before the street fighting escalated. By now, he’d figured out which of the band members had been the ringleader. The memory of Cabrillo’s face on the tape from the single security camera that had worked had burned a hole in his brain that only death or insanity would erase.
Po set out to see if he could find his target—he had no idea of the impending war.
As Po and the other policemen loaded into a large six-passenger truck to scour Lhasa, the Chinese military officers were beginning to realize the gravity of the situation. They started to assemble to exert control over the city and crush the rebel forces.
The Dungkarstarted their plan in motion as well.
TIME was of the essence and Cabrillo had none to spare. For a man that had been yanked from sleep, bound and transported south to the airport under guard, Legchog Zhuren was surprisingly belligerent. Cabrillo had first tried to appeal to Zhuren’s sense of goodness, asking him just to explain the procedure for the poison gas and where the stockpiles were located, but Zhuren had spit in his face and puffed up his chest.
It was obvious that goodness was not a quality Zhuren cherished.
“Tape him,” Cabrillo said.
Up until this second, Cabrillo had tried to show respect by allowing Zhuren to simply sit in the chair in front of him—now it was time to learn what he needed, and for that the Chinese leader would need to be secured. Seng and Gannon wrapped his arms and legs with duct tape and secured him to the chair.
“Prepare the juice,” Cabrillo said to Huxley.
“What are you—” Zhuren started to say.
“I asked you nice,” Cabrillo said, “to help me save both the Chinese in Tibet as well as the Tibetan nationals. You didn’t seem to want to cooperate. We have a little serum that will help to loosen your tongue. Trust me, you’ll tell us everything, from your first conscious memory to the last time you had sex. The only problem is this:
We cannot always get the dosage right. Too much and we erase your memory like a wet cloth across a chalkboard. Usually we gradually increase the dosage to try and avoid that—but you’re a prick, so I think we’ll bypass that step.”
“You’re lying,” Zhuren said in a voice showing fear.
“Ms. Huxley,” Cabrillo said, “twenty cc’s in the lieutenant’s arm, please.”
Huxley walked over to where the Chinese army lieutenant was still bound to his chair. She squirted some of the liquid in the air until she had the correct amount, then with her other hand wiped an alcohol swab across his upper arm, then plunged the needle into a vein. Cabrillo watched the second hand of his watch as fifteen seconds passed.
“Name and where you were born, please,” Cabrillo said.
The lieutenant rattled off the information like his tongue was on fire.
“What is the total troop strength inside Lhasa?”
“There were eighty-four hundred approximate troops,” the lieutenant said. “Just over six thousand were sent north toward Mongolia. That leaves around twenty-four hundred. Of those, some two hundred fifty were sick or injured. The remaining troops are Company S, Company L—”
“That’s enough,” Cabrillo said.
“I don’t mind,” the lieutenant said, smiling. “We have the following armor. Four T-59—”
“That’s fine,” Cabrillo said.
Zhuren stared at the lieutenant in horror.
“Ms. Huxley,” Cabrillo said slowly. “Prepare one hundred cc’s.”