The Z-9 shadowed them for a few more miles, then veered off and disappeared into a cloud bank.
“Next search area coming up in three minutes,” Hosni called.
Sam and Remi got situated near the windows.
As had become routine, Hosni lifted the Bell’s nose over a ridgeline, then banked sharply into the target valley, bleeding off altitude as he went. He slowed the Bell to a hover.
Sam was the first to notice the valley’s surreal landscape below. While the upper slopes were thick with pine trees, the lower reaches looked as if they had been carved by a rectangular cookie cutter, leaving behind sheer cliffs plummeting into a lake. Jutting from the opposite slope and encircling one end was an ice-covered plateau. A runnel of churning water sliced through the shelf and cascaded to the waters below.
“Hosni, how deep do you think this is?” Sam asked. “The valley, I mean.”
“From the ridgeline to the lake, perhaps eight hundred feet.”
“The cliffs are half that at least,” said Sam.
Honsi eased the Bell forward, following the slope, as Sam and Remi scanned the terrain through their binoculars. As they drew even with the plateau, and Hosni came about, they saw that the plateau was deceptively deep, narrowing for a few hundred yards before ending at a towering wall of ice bracketed by vertical cliffs.
“That’s a glacier,” Sam said. “Hosni, I didn’t see this plateau on any maps. Does it look familiar?”
“No, you are right. This is relatively new. You see the color of the lake, the greenish gray?”
“Yes,” said Remi.
“You see that after glacial retreat. This section of the valley is less than two years old, I would estimate.”
“Climate change?”
“Most definitely. The glacier we passed earlier-the Pung Gyen-lost forty feet last year alone.”
Pressed up against her window, Remi suddenly lowered her binoculars. “Sam, look at this!”
He slid over to her side and peered out the window. Directly below them was what looked like a wooden hut half buried in a waist-high ice shelf.
“What in the world is that?” Sam asked. “Hosni?”
“I have no idea.”
“How close to the coordinates are we?”
“Not quite a kilometer.”
Remi said, “Sam, that’s a gondola.”
“Pardon?”
“A wicker gondola-for a hot-air balloon.”
“Are you sure?”
“Hosni, set us down!”
31
NORTHERN NEPAL
Hosni crabbed the Bell sideways over the plateau until he found a spot he decided was solid enough to bear the helicopter’s weight, then touched down. Once the rotors had spooled down, Sam and Remi climbed out and donned their jackets, caps, and gloves.
Hosni called, “Step carefully! There will be many crevasses in an area like this.”
They waved their understanding and started across the plateau toward the object.
“Here, wait . . .” Hosni called. They walked back. He climbed out of the cockpit and stooped beside the tail storage compartment. He removed what looked like a foldable tent pole and handed it to Sam. “Avalanche probe. Works as well with crevasses. Best to be safe.”
“Thanks.” Sam gave the probe a flick, and it snaked outward, the inner bungee cord snapping the sections into place. “Nifty.”
They set off again, this time with Sam probing as they walked.
The ice sheet that partially covered the plateau was rippled like waves frozen in place, leftover, they assumed, by the glacier’s slow grinding retreat up the valley.
The object in question lay near the far edge of the plateau, sitting kitty-corner to the rest of the plateau.
After five minutes of careful walking, they stood before it.
“I’m glad I didn’t bet you,” Sam said. “That’s a gondola, all right.”
“Upside down. That explains why it looked like a hut. They don’t make them like this anymore. What in the world is it doing here?”
“No idea.”
Remi took a step forward; Sam halted her with a hand on her shoulder. He probed the ice in front of the gondola, found it solid, then began poking around what should have been its sides.
“There’s more,” Sam said.
They continued sidestepping left, paralleling the gondola, probing as they went, until they reached the end.
Sam frowned and said, “Curiouser and curiouser.”
Remi asked. “How long is it?”
“Roughly thirty feet.”
“That’s impossible. Aren’t most maybe three feet by three feet?”
“More or less.” He slid the probe over the gondola’s upturned bottom as far as he could reach. “Nearly eight feet wide.”
Sam handed her the probe, then knelt down and crawled forward, hands sliding through the snow along the gondola’s side.
“Sam, be care-”
His arm plunged into the snow up to his elbow. He froze.
“I can’t be entirely sure,” he said with a grin, “but I think I found something.” He laid himself flat.
“I got you,” Remi replied. She grabbed his boots.
Sam used both hands to punch a basketball-sized hole in the ice, then poked his head inside. He turned back to Remi. “A crevasse. Very deep. The gondola’s half straddling it diagonally.”
He took another peek through the hole, then wriggled back away from the crevasse and pushed himself to his knees. He said, “I’ve found the answer to how it got here.”
“How?”
“It flew. There’s rigging still attached to the gondola-wooden stays, some kind of braided cord . . . I even saw what looked like a fabric of some sort. The whole tangled mess is hanging in the crevasse.”
Remi sat down beside him, and they stared at the gondola for a bit. Remi said, “A mystery for another time?”
Sam nodded. “Absolutely. We’ll mark it and come back.”
They stood up. Sam cocked his head. “Listen.”
Faintly in the distance came the chopping of helicopter rotors. They turned around, trying to localize the sound. Standing beside the Bell, Hosni had heard it too. He stared up at the sky.
Suddenly to their left an olive green helicopter popped over the ridgeline, then dropped into the valley and turned in their direction. On the aircraft’s door was a five-pointed red star outlined in yellow.
The helicopter drew even with the plateau and slowed to a hover fifty feet from Sam and Remi, nose cone and rocket pods pointed directly at them.
“Don’t move,” Sam said.
“Chinese Army?” asked Remi.
“Yes. Same as the Z-9 we spotted yesterday.”
“What do they want?”
Before Sam could answer, the helicopter pivoted, revealing an open cabin door. In it, a soldier crouched behind a mounted machine gun.
Sam could sense Remi’s body go tense beside him. He slowly grasped her hand in his. “Don’t run. If they wanted us dead, we’d already be dead.”
Out of the corner of his eye Sam saw movement. He glanced toward the helicopter and saw Hosni opening the side door. A moment later he emerged. In his hands was a compact machine gun. He raised it toward the Z-9.
“Hosni, no!” Sam shouted.
Hosni’s machine gun bucked, and the muzzle flashed orange. Bullets peppered the Z-9’s windshield. The helicopter banked sharply right, then accelerated away, skimming over the lake’s surface toward the ridgeline, where it banked again until its nose was again aimed at the Bell.
“Hosni, run!” Sam shouted, then to Remi: “Behind the gondola! Go!”
Remi spun into a sprint, with Sam close on her heels.
“Remi, the crevasse!” Sam called. “Veer left.”
Remi did, then pushed off with both legs, diving headfirst onto the gondola. Sam hit it a moment later, then pushed himself to his knees and helped Remi onto the ice shelf. They tumbled down the backside and landed in a sprawling heap.
From across the plateau they heard the chattering of Hosni’s machine gun. Sam stood up and peeked over the ice. Hosni was standing defiantly at the edge of the plateau, firing at the oncoming Z-9.