From the diameter Turcotte had no doubt that this entrance had been built to accommodate bouncers, allowing them access to the cavern below. It was also the way all that gear had probably been put in there.
He could hear labored breathing behind him as he climbed, but his focus was on the narrow beam of light the flashlight on top of his MP-5 cast.
After five minutes Turcotte saw the end. A smooth wall of metal closed off the path. He stopped and looked over his shoulder. A long string of flashlights indicated the scattered line behind him. “Howes!” Turcotte called out. “Everyone else, hold where you are.”
The Special Forces engineer made his way forward, his bulky rucksack resting on his back. Howes dumped the ruck at Turcotte’s feet, holding it in place with a boot while he surveyed the metal.
“No idea how thick?” he asked.
“The professor says maybe a couple of feet.”
Howes nodded, his mind already working the problem. He opened a pocket on the outside of the ruck and pulled out a fifty-foot length of 10mm climbing rope and several pitons. He handed a hammer and two pitons to Turcotte and pointed to the right while he went left. They climbed as far as they could up the side of the tunnel, then got to work hammering the pitons into the rock.
Once both his pitons were in, Turcotte looped a length of rope through the snap link on the end of each one and brought the two ropes back to the center. Howes met him there and slowly pulled a large black cylinder, pointed on one end, out of the pack. It was almost three feet long and a foot and a half in diameter. Howes tied off the four ropes to bolts on the side of it.
Using the frame of his rucksack as a support, and the ropes to hold it in place, Howes wedged the shaped charge up so that the pointed end pointed at the metal.
“Hope this works,” Howes said. “Fire in the hole!” he yelled as he pulled the fuse.
Both he and Turcotte dropped down on their butts and slid forty feet down the tube to where Kostanov waited at the head of the column. The Russian grabbed them and halted their slide. “How long is the—” he began, but he was answered by a bright flash and explosion. A wave of hot air blew down the tunnel.
The shaped charge was sixty pounds of high explosive, molded in such a way that the major force of the explosion was focused several feet in front of the point. It burrowed into the metal door, heat and shock forcing its way.
Turcotte started climbing back up. This would be the moment of truth. If the charge hadn’t burned through the cap, he didn’t know how they were going to get out. Turcotte paused. He could feel fresh air on his face. “Let’s go!” he yelled.
He clambered his way forward, toward the jagged opening through which he could see stars shining high up above. Grabbing hold of the sides of the hole, he pulled himself out, then immediately tumbled down the side of the mountain tomb until he could arrest his fall by getting a grip on some bushes. He could hear Howes behind him, climbing through more carefully and attaching a rope in place to bring the others up.
Turcotte scanned the countryside. The opening was about two hundred meters from the crest of the tomb. Turcotte could see the lights of a town several miles to his right. Checking his wrist compass, Turcotte confirmed that he was on the eastern side. The pickup zone was to his left, several kilometers north.
Turcotte froze as he spotted a long line of small lights below him, about eight hundred meters away. A skirmish line, moving very slowly up the side of the tomb. He knew they were reacting to the explosion that had opened the shaft.
“Let’s put a move on, people,” Turcotte hissed over his shoulder. “We’ve got company.”
Turcotte climbed the short distance back up to the exit. He could see that the metal had been covered by earth and bushes, well hidden for centuries. The shaped charge had ripped a narrow hole about three feet wide through the cover.
Harker had his entire team out, now helping the Chinese students through the hole. The Russians under Kostanov were bringing up the rear.
“We’re going to be in the shit soon,” Turcotte told Harker, pointing at the long line of small lights.
“Jesus, that’s at least a battalion,” Harker said, estimating the situation. The Special Forces warrant officer scanned the sky. “I don’t see any Chinese helicopters. They get air on top of us, we’re finished.”
Turcotte pointed to the north. “We’re going that way. We’ll stay at this height, go around, and come down on the north. It should be clear.”
“They’ll come up behind us at altitude,” Harker noted. “With the old lady, we can’t move fast. We’ll be in their sights and they’ll have the high ground.” “Got any better ideas?” Turcotte asked.
“Mission accomplishment,” Harker said shortly. “My assignment is to get you and the professor out of here alive, not a bunch of students and some Russians.”
“Ah, most true,” Kostanov said from behind them. “Mission accomplishment must come first.”
“We go together,” Turcotte said, not wishing to waste any more time. “Are we all up?”
“Yes.” Che Lu was poised precariously on the side of the tomb, a bamboo pole in her hand dug into the earth, keeping her in place.
“We have to—” Turcotte began.
“I know what we have to do,” Che Lu interrupted. “Do not worry about me. I will keep up.”
“I’ll cover our rear,” Kostanov said.
“Let’s go.” Turcotte moved past the cluster of students and soldiers. It was hard going, walking along the forty-degree slope, and Turcotte knew the tactical reality was against them.
He heard the rattle of pebbles and swung up the muzzle of his MP-5, the laser aiming-dot reaching through the darkness. Turcotte centered the dot on the forehead of the lead figure in a group of five men about twenty feet ahead.
A voice cried out in Chinese from the group and Turcotte’s finger curled around the trigger and began to pull it back when Che Lu called out, “Do not shoot! They are my friends.” She immediately said something in Chinese as she worked her way along the group to stand at Turcotte’s side.
“Lo Fa!” she exclaimed as the old man walked up, body leaning against the slope.
“I told you not to disturb things best left alone,” Lo Fa said. He looked past them at the line of lights climbing up the hill, getting closer. “We have been searching for what the army searches for. I told these other idiots”—he gestured at the men with him—“that it was just a foolish old woman poking her bent nose where it shouldn’t be. You must come with me if you wish to get away.”
“Which way?” Turcotte asked.
Lo Fa pointed straight up the hill. “We go over the top and then west.” Turcotte shook his head. “We have to go north.”
“The army is north,” Lo Fa said. “You cannot go that way. We came from the west and we know a secret way to go in that direction.”
“We have to go north,” Turcotte said. He knew they didn’t have time to make a wide sweep around the Chinese. Not only was their PZ clock ticking, there was the larger clock of Aspasia’s pending arrival.
“As you wish.” Lo Fa shrugged. “Old lady, bring your students with you.” Che Lu turned to Turcotte and Kostanov. “It will be easier for you without me.”
Turcotte didn’t have the time or inclination to discuss it. “All right.”
Che Lu reached out and grasped his arm. “Bring the truth to the world. I must stay here with my people.” She took Nabinger’s hand and pointed down. “Besides, there is much in here we have not uncovered yet.”
“Good luck,” Turcotte said, but she was already scrambling away in the dark, following Lo Fa and his guerrillas.
As they disappeared upslope, Turcotte was moving, leaning into the mountain tomb, working his way to the north. The skirmish line was now less than six hundred yards away. Turcotte looked along it to its right wing. At the current rate the two groups were traveling, he knew that he would not clear the right wing before it reached his altitude.