Wu drew in a breath. How did they learn of this?
"No, nothing like that is being considered. Your government is paranoid."
"What is going to happen on the Fourth? Are you planning an attack? Because I don't want to be anywhere near here if you are."
"What possible advantage would that give us? Of course not." The lie came easily. "The Triads are being mobilized against the Dalai Llama and the Tibetan Revisionists, that's all. Large demonstrations will take place. They will be forceful but peaceful. We will achieve maximum exposure by protesting on your independence day. You should not be worried."
By the time Juggler realized Wu was lying it would be too late to make any difference, but Wu needed to pacify him. Juggler was nervous. Wu decided his usefulness was over. There would be no more payments, but Juggler didn't need to know that.
"Excellent, Juggler. There will be a bonus this time. Continue to keep me informed of any developments, but there should be no more confusion after the demonstrations take place."
"I have to go. Someone's coming."
Juggler ended the call.
Wu stood in the early morning mountain cold and thought about what to say to General Yang. He walked away from the vehicle. Choy made to follow and Wu waved him back. He called Yang.
"Yes."
"Sir, I have just received a call from an asset in America."
"Yes?"
"The Americans have learned we plan something using the Triads. They suspect the existence of Summer Wind."
Silence. Wu waited.
"What is the reliability of this asset?"
"Very high, sir. He is embedded in their Federal Bureau of Investigation."
"This changes nothing. We will continue as planned. What is your current status?"
"We are starting up to the objective. I estimate three or four hours until we arrive. We found tracks and I believe the Americans are here ahead of us."
"Meddlers. Find and eliminate them. You have your orders."
"Yes, sir."
"Report when you have more information." Yang ended the call.
Wu turned and walked back to where Choy waited.
"Let's go, Sergeant."
The convoy began the climb to the ruins. Wu checked his pistol, put it back in his holster. With luck he would take the Americans by surprise. There couldn't be many of them, there were only tracks for one vehicle. He rubbed his forehead, trying to ease the pounding headache that had started. Damn this thin air. He coughed and spit out a wad of phlegm. Maybe it was time to cut back on his smoking.
Chapter Forty-Four
"Selena, come look at this." Nick called her over.
The three of them stood in front of the mummified figure.
"What's holding him up?" Ronnie held his torch close. The skin was old and brown and pulled tight over the bones of the skull. The eyes were black hollows in the face.
"Must be propped up, under the robe."
"It's one of the priests, like in the paintings. That's a piece of white jade in his hand." She stepped closer. "It's a carved figure of the emperor."
Carter remembered his dream of a robed figure in darkness, holding something white out toward him. The hair stirred on the back of his neck..
"What do you think they were doing in here?" He held his torch up. The flame reflected off the glass containers on the tables.
"Caldrons, fire, glass — it's a laboratory. I think they were trying to make an elixir of immortality," said Selena.
"It's beginning to look like it. You have any luck with the writing on the walls?"
"It's the linguistic discovery of a lifetime. The writing is a narrative and each panel has something written underneath about the painting above."
"Sort of an illustrated book." Ronnie said.
"Yes. This priest with the jade was part of a cult of eternal life. You saw that mural at the end, where everyone is standing around and raising their hands to heaven? The writing says the body was prepared for eternal existence. Immortality to these people meant you came back after death, and you had to have a body to do it. No body, no immortality."
Nick sat on a stone bench, trying to take stress off his back. "Belief in eternal life has been around since the cavemen. Lots of cultures put personal things like food and dishes in the grave for the dead person to use after death."
"The Minoans did that," said Selena. "Archeologists have found personal objects in Minoan tombs. They might have picked up on the idea from the Egyptians."
Carter tugged on his ear. "If the Minoans were leaving things in the tombs, they must have thought the body needed those things after death."
"But the Minoans didn't preserve bodies." Selena brushed a wisp of hair away. "They buried the dead in collective tombs and kept using the tombs over and over, pushing everything into a corner until it got full. These murals present something radically different. First you die, the body's preserved, then you come back in the same body and live forever. That's a huge divergence from what we know about Minoan and early Vedic civilization. The Indians cremated their dead. They still do."
"What's the elixir for?" Ronnie asked.
"I think they wanted to create a real formula for staying alive forever."
"Why here in Tibet?"
"The story on the walls says the priests started from here, went to Crete and then returned. It doesn't say when or why or how they could have known about the Minoans. The part about the emperor is clear enough. Huang was brought to this spot, to receive the elixir. That would have been in 210 B.C.E."
"I wonder what they did with him? We haven't seen anything that looks like a tomb." His back was stiffening up. Time to get back to work.
Ronnie looked at the mummy. The priest grinned back. "What's next, Nick?"
"Selena gets videos of everything. You and I look for anything that might interest Yang. Selena, if you record all of the writing we can translate it later. Once you've got your pictures we'll get out and blow the entrance. I don't want Yang down here poking around."
"You want to blow up that statue?"
"We don't have a choice. We got in easily enough. Whoever Yang sends will have the same information we have. We'll just seal the top. In the future someone can re-open it, if that's the right thing."
She shook her head. "I never thought I'd be part of destroying the archeological find of the century. I'd better finish getting my pictures."
Carter reached out to take the piece of white jade from the mummy's hand. It didn't move. He tugged on it and the arm came up as the jade came free. As he turned to give it to Selena the floor shook under their feet.
Something was happening deep under the stones. The room started to shake. Bits of mortar and trails of dust fell from the ceiling. A glass bowl slipped from one of the tables and shattered.
Taking the jade figure of the emperor had triggered some ancient mechanism. They ran out of the room, down the steps and into the great outer chamber. A thick silver fluid gushed into the channels cut along the sides of the steps and flowed down into the openings by the white slab on the platform.
"That looks like mercury," Selena called above the rumble of moving stone.
It was mercury, a hell of a lot of it. They stood at the foot of the steps and watched a rectangular white block slowly rise in the center of the platform. After a minute the flow of mercury in the channels slowed to a trickle. The rumbling vibration died away.
They walked over to the block. It was chest high and illustrated with elaborate scenes of life in ancient China. Selena ran her hands over the carvings.
"This entire container is made of white jade. I think it's a crypt, or a sarcophagus."
Carter stood next to her. "What do you think is inside?"
"Not what, who. I think the First Emperor of China"
"Still alive, you think?"