Squirrelly looked in the direction of the Mongol's sideways glance. She saw three tanks and the soldiers.
"What do I do?" she whispered.
"You will know," said Kula.
An official-looking man in a green uniform advanced, flanked by two soldiers in PLA olive drab.
"I am PSB man. Public Security Bureau," he said. "You are Squirrelly Chicane?"
"I have a visa."
"I will see your visa."
Squirrelly dug it out of her purse.
The PSB man looked at it carefully and said, "I must search your belongings for contraband."
"All I have," said Squirrelly, smiling her best curl-their-toes smile, "are what you see here. My palanquin and a few close personal friends." She waved airily in the direction of her train, whose numbers seemed to reach back to the horizon.
"Do they have entry visa?"
"Permission was given for the Bunji to be accompanied by her retinue," Lobsang pointed out.
"All these?"
"Hey, I'm planning a really big production," Squirrelly said quickly. "I need crew to scout locations, set up liaisons and research local costumes and exteriors. By the way, do you happen to know where we can find some really good Tibetan sound stages?"
The PSB man looked at her with the bland expression of someone who understood little and feared to lose face. "I will examine belongings now," he said.
Squirrelly waved him to her palanquin, where her few belongings were. "Feel free."
Soldiers rushed up and used their spike bayonets to poke among the cushions. Finding nothing, they started spearing them and hurling them away.
"Hey! Be careful! That's my best palanquin"
She was ignored. Behind them the train of the Bunji Lama stood somberly and spun their prayer wheels.
Surreptitiously Squirrelly signaled them to spin faster.
The prayer wheels cranked in agitation, varicolored tassels becoming blurs.
Squirrelly smiled. This was great. Look at that backdrop. The wedgewood sky. The cast of extras. It was the perfect panoramic wide-angle-lens shot. This wouldn't be just another Squirrelly Chicane movie. This was going to be an epic. Maybe the last of the epics. She could already smell the box-office dollars.
Suddenly the PSB official flung her purse to ground. He was holding her roach clip. It squeezed the burned-down butt of her last reefer. Digging farther, he came upon her stash of bhang.
"Contraband!" he barked.
"Oh, give me a break," Squirrelly snapped. "It's less than an ounce. Personal use. Savvy?"
The PSB shouted something in Mandarin and waved for the skirmish line of soldiers to advance.
"What did he say?" Squirrelly asked Kula.
Kula gripped his bone-handled knife and hissed, "He has ordered our arrest."
"Arrest?"
"We are to be taken to prison."
"Prison?"
Windburned eyes narrowing, Kula unsheathed his silver dagger.
Squirrelly knocked it from his hand. "Are you crazy?" she spat. "Put that thing away."
"We will not be taken by Chinese," Kula said through tight teeth.
"Don't go Klingon on me. Don't you see this is perfect? The misunderstood and cruelly persecuted Bunji Lama is summarily hauled off to prison. That's our second act!"
Chapter 21
On the outskirts of the frontier town of Zhangmu, just inside Tibet, Remo Williams stood by the side of the NepaleseTibetan Friendship Highway waiting for an Isuzu WuShiLing to come by.
So far, all he had seen were the clunky old green Jiefeng trucks. He was starting to think he'd have to settle for a Dongfeng, which, according to the hitchhikers' guidebook he'd picked up in Hong Kong, was not as roomy as a WuShiLing, but definitely faster than a Jiefeng.
Normally Smith's connections could get Remo to almost any spot on earth. But the Chinese had cut off Tibet's few commercial airports, sealed its borders to foreigners, and only necessary commercial truck traffic was passing through ground checkpoints.
Remo had checked in with Smith when he reached the Hong Kong airport.
"There are reports the Bunji Lama has crossed the border of Tibet," Smith had told him, his voice grim, "followed by a train of upward of a thousand pilgrims.
"Any word of Chiun?"
"No," Smith had said.
"Maybe you should call 1-800-GENGHIS. "
"I beg your pardon?"
"Boldbator Khan has an 800 number of his own."
"You are joking."
"I called it myself."
Over the miles of intangible phone line, Remo could almost hear Harold Smith mentally debating whether or not to accept Remo's word.
"Can't hurt to call," Remo prompted.
"One moment," said Smith.
He came back a moment later, saying, "The line is busy."
"Must be a run on looting and pillaging," Remo said dryly. "But it was Boldbator who hired Chiun to find the Bunji Lama. Maybe he's trying to chisel another roomful of gold to save her from the Chinese."
"And there is no doubt if Miss Chicane and her entourage have crossed the border, PLA units will be sent to intercept them," Smith said tightly.
"So what do we do?"
Smith was silent a moment. "Change your plans. Do not fly to New Delhi. Go to Nepal. From Katmandu you can enter Tibet and reach any number of points as developments warrant. Contact me when you arrive."
In Katmandu, Remo had called Smith again.
"Squirrelly Chicane has been arrested by the Chinese authorities," Smith reported. "It just came over the wire."
"So much for the First Lady's guarantee."
Smith cleared his throat unhappily. "I believe the charge is drug possession. This could be extremely embarrassing for the First Lady."
"Can't have the First Lady embarrassed," Remo said. "Congress might faint dead away. So what do I do now?"
"Miss Chicane has been taken to Lhasa, the Tibetan capital. Cross the Nepalese border on foot. Once you bypass customs and Public Security Bureau posts, it should be easy to hitchhike to Lhasa along the Friendship Highway."
"Hitchhike? Is that the best you can do?"
"Unfortunately, yes. In Lhasa, make contact there with Bumba Fun."
"Who's he-the local Bozo the clown?"
"Bumba Fun is a member of Chushi Gangdruk. Tibetan resistance."
"The Tibetans have resistance fighters? How come I never heard of them?"
"Because when they are successful," Smith said dryly, "the Chinese occupation suppresses news of their exploits, and when they are not they are tortured and executed in secret. Bumba Fun will be your guide."
"I don't need a guide."
"Do you speak Tibetan?"
"No."
"Can you pass for Tibetan?"
"You know I can't. "
"You will need Bumba Fun."
AND SO REMO now on a dusty road on the outskirts of a truck depot just inside Tibet waiting for a modern WuShiLing, or at least a semimodern brown Dongfeng. But definitely not a Refeng truck, because the guidebook had warned him they were slow and breakdown prone, and there was hardly any room in the cabin for the driver, never mind a passenger.
After two hours of nothing but Jiefengs, Remo gave up. The next Dongfeng or Jiefeng that came along, he decided, was his. He just hoped the driver had bathed some time in the past six months.
The next truck turned out to be a shiny new WuShiLing, so Remo figured his luck was starting to change.
Following the guidebook's directions, Remo popped his thumbs up, stacking his fists while making butter-churning motions.
The driver brought his truck to a screeching, dusty halt. He had a wise old windburned face with merry eyes. He might have been thirty; he might have been fifty. The harsh mountains aged people mercilessly. He wore a tight-fitting winter hat with hanging earflaps. When he stuck out his tongue in greeting, he reminded Remo of a middle-aged fourth-grader.
"Lhasa?" said Remo.
"Shigatse," said the driver.