Bone Mountain (55 page)

C
HAPTER
F
IFTEEN

Winslow dropped to his knees, pointing toward a hole in the side of the gorge below them, where the barrel of a rifle protruded from the shadow. He began fumbling with his pack, cursing under his breath. Shan, suddenly remembering that the American carried Lin’s pistol, pushed Winslow’s arm down.

Somo removed her green jacket and called out. “Lha gyal lo!” she cried, one hand in the air, the other conspicuously grabbing the gau around her neck.

A Tibetan man burst out of the shadows, brandishing a long rifle. He stared at them, acknowledging Somo with an angry frown, then motioned them forward with the tip of his weapon. As he stepped down the sloping trail Shan saw that the hole in the rock was actually a wide undercut, ten feet high and thirty long, where the river must have once eroded part of the wall. The man waited for them, exchanged a few whispered words with Somo, and led them toward a deeper patch of shadow which proved to be a heavy blanket hung from a timber wedged in the rock.

They followed a short tunnel, through another hanging blanket, and stepped into a cavern with a high vaulted ceiling, perhaps forty feet wide, lit by several bright gas lanterns.

The boy they had seen above sat near the entrance watching, round-eyed, the activity in the chamber. Two young men, one of them a purba Shan had seen with Tenzin, huddled over a map spread across a flat rock. On a table made of long planks laid across two stacks of flat stones a portable computer sat open, its screen displaying what seemed to be a three dimensional cross-section of a mountain, in many colored layers. Several rifles leaned against the back wall. Beyond the computer, he saw two middle-aged Tibetans bent over two microscopes. A third figure, in a green jacket, leaned over a rack of test tubes, scribbling in a spiral notepad.

Winslow froze and made a small choking sound. The figure in green straightened and turned slowly. It was a woman with unkempt, curly reddish blond hair gathered in a short braid at the back. She opened her mouth as though to speak, but only stared at Winslow, her green eyes puzzled.

“Dr. Larkin, I presume,” Winslow said softly in English. For the first time since Shan had known him the American seemed at a loss for words. He just stared at the woman with a small, self-conscious grin. She was shorter than Winslow, though not by much, and perhaps ten years younger. Her high cheekbones would have given her an elegant appearance, but for a sprinkling of freckles on each.

The woman glanced peevishly at the two Tibetans at the map, then at the sentry standing at the entrance. “You’re the one from the embassy,” she said in English. She stared at Winslow strangely. Not in anger, or frustration, but as if there was something about Winslow that perplexed her. “The one the Tibetans call the cowboy. They said you were gone.”

“I was,” Winslow said, still grinning. “I came back. To warn you,” he added after a moment.

Melissa Larkin frowned, and glanced at the men with the map again. “We are in no danger,” she said. “Comrade Zhu did me the favor of already reporting me dead,” she added.

“Only to clear the field,” Winslow declared. “Comrade Zhu wants you dead again,” and then, switching to Tibetan, he began explaining what they had learned in Golmud. The American geologist remained silent as Winslow spoke—pouring three mugs of black tea, but keeping her eyes on Winslow the whole time. One of the men at the map darted to the back wall, returned with an automatic rifle, an army weapon, and disappeared behind the blanket at the entrance.

“A trap?” Larkin asked. “Sounds a bit melodramatic.”

“I’ve worked in China for over five years,” Winslow said. “And you have been in China and Tibet almost as long. What part don’t you believe? That the venture’s given up on you? That the Chinese would want to stop you from working with certain Tibetans? That Comrade Zhu would go to the trouble of coming back into the mountains and not just send the army in? All the others might think you’re dead. Zhu knows better, because he planned it, because he lied to me, lied to Jenkins, lied to everyone to make us think that.”

Larkin smiled as if amused by Winslow’s words. The expression made little indentations on either side of her mouth. Shan searched for the word in English. Dimples. She gestured Somo toward the man who remained at the map, and stepped away to join the purbas in hushed, urgent dialogue.

Shan stared at the computer and racks of test tubes. On the table was another map of the region, with thick lines drawn in several bold colors. He inched closer and studied it. Each line had a number inscribed at its end. One, two, three, through six. He looked up and found the woman in the green jacket, with the green eyes, standing three feet away, staring at him.

“You’re the Green Tara,” Shan ventured, “the one they bring water to.”

“Not my idea, that name. It’s embarrassing,” Larkin said.

“A protector deity,” Winslow said with another grin. He seemed unable to stop smiling. He had come to Tibet for a body and discovered a living woman.

Shan saw that one short line on the map, labeled seven, ran only for an inch on the paper, on the mountain above them, then continued for two inches in red dashes. “You plot river courses,” he said in confusion. He spotted several long plastic tubes of colored powder leaning against the back wall. “You drop markers in rivers. But the rivers are already mapped. Why?”

“Not all are mapped,” the American woman said. “Not this one. Not the Yapchi River.”

“The Yapchi?”

“That’s what we call it.”

“What’s a river in the mountains have to do with oil?”

Larkin sighed. “Do you know how many geologic mysteries remain on the planet? I mean major unknowns. A hundred and fifty years ago the sources of many major rivers had yet to be found. The tectonic plates had not been defined, or even theorized. Many of the world’s greatest peaks had yet to be discovered. Vast regions had yet to be mapped. Today, outside the bottom of the oceans, what’s left? In all my career I had never hoped to have a taste of such excitement. But then I came to Yapchi camp.” Her gaze drifted toward Somo and the other purbas, still speaking in quiet tones. “After four days on this mountain I knew something was wrong. The water coming off the mountain wasn’t nearly enough, given the size of the snowpack and dimensions of the watershed.”

“You mean you discovered this river? But it’s not a river. I mean—”

“It is and it isn’t. It’s a hidden river. A buried river. The river tumbles down the mountain for three miles and slams into this gorge. It’s the wrong place, I thought at first. A fluke of the terrain, maybe just a temporary feature that happened this year because of a rockslide somewhere above that blocked the normal watercourse. Nature doesn’t send rivers into deadend canyons.”

“You mean it goes inside, underground from here,” Shan said. “A new feature for maps of the region.”

“Like the Upper Tsangpo.” Winslow gave a low whistle. “You’ll be famous,” he said with a new tone of respect.

Larkin acknowledged Winslow’s words with a surprised expression, a nod of respect. A few years earlier a team of American explorers had gained international notoriety by scaling a treacherous, uncharted gorge in Tibet to confirm the existence of a beautiful waterfall that had been spoken of in Tibetan myth.

“But why would Zhu hate you for that.”

Larkin looked at the man with Somo then at the two older men at the table, who continued to work at the microscopes, pausing sometimes to lift water from the test tubes with small droppers. “He doesn’t like my helpers.”

Shan stared at the two Tibetans. They were not purbas, or at least not like any he had known. They looked like professors. Somo appeared at his side. “They are friends,” she said pointedly, meaning that no one would offer their names. “Beijing will be furious,” Larkin said, her eyes suddenly flush with excitement. “The discovery will be announced overseas, and credited to Tibetans. And if we discovered that it emerged north of the mountains it would be the new headwaters.”

The Tibetans all grinned at Shan. Larkin meant that the little river they had discovered would be the new source of the Yangtze, China’s greatest river, announced and proven by Tibetans. Beijing would indeed be furious. Beijing would be apoplectic. It was Shan’s turn to grin.

*   *   *

An hour after dawn the next day they arrived at the high, remote clearing where Shan, Winslow, and Somo had been dropped by the helicopter the day before. Long rays of sunlight cut horizontally across the windblown ridge. The supplies had not arrived. The two purbas who had been with the map the day before stole away in opposite directions to circle the landing zone. Larkin had not accepted that Zhu wanted to do her harm, but she had agreed to leave early for the supply drop, and had listened with an amused expression to Winslow’s suggestion that they might want to test Zhu with a trick. If Zhu were indeed intending to harm Larkin, he would not come in the helicopter with the supplies for fear of frightening her away, and because the pilot might become a witness. He would have himself dropped perhaps a mile away and wait until the helicopter completed the supply drop. The purbas would watch the trail that led to the nearest clearing, the likely dropoff point, while Winslow rigged a decoy. “Be careful. Watch everywhere,” Somo warned the two sentries as they began to jog to their post. “We don’t know where that hidden patrol is.” Hidden patrol. The words caused Shan to survey the rugged landscape again. She meant Tuan’s hidden squad of knobs.

Larkin still gazed with amusement as they watched from the rocks. She had seemed touched that Winslow had gone to such lengths to locate her, but although she did not give voice to the point, it seemed apparent she thought she needed no one’s help. Yet the two Americans had warmed to each other, preparing the evening meal together the night before, and walking side by side on the trail that morning, sharing stories of home and mindless bureaucrats and experiences in Tibet, laughing softly together sometimes, even pausing to watch a hawk floating in the mountain up-drafts.

After an hour of watching from the rocks Larkin gave a conspicuous yawn, casting an impatient glance at Winslow, then produced her spiral pad and began studying her notes.

Somo seemed troubled somehow. Finally she cast an anxious look toward the rocks on the opposite side where the two purbas kept watch, then turned to Shan. “They didn’t want me to tell. They don’t know you, said you and I were not part of this project. But you have to know. It’s just that those bottles of water that go to the Green Tara. Sometimes they come with messages.”

“Secrets,” Larkin interjected, with a tone of warning.

“Sometimes about movements of knobs and soldiers, and Religious Affairs. Lokesh and Tenzin are not at Yapchi. But for the past two days none of them have moved south into Amdo town or north into Wenquan,” Somo reported. “And no helicopters are known to have landed at Yapchi or anywhere else within twenty miles.”

Winslow opened his map with a puzzled look, and shared it with Shan. Wenquan was the first town in Qinghai, going north. Amdo was the next town south for anyone going toward Lhasa.

“They weren’t taken where anyone would expect,” Somo said in a hushed, urgent voice. “Not to jails. Not to Lhasa. Not to the airport to be sent to some other prisoner facility. Not to any known reprogramming facility.” There was nothing on the section of highway between the cities, except a short thin grey line intersecting it from the west. “There is only one place,” she said, pointing to the end of the line. “Norbu gompa.”

It made no sense. But it would make less sense for Religious Affairs and the soldiers to hold the prisoners at Yapchi, and certainly the soldiers knew about Norbu. Shan’s mouth went dry as he recalled the political signs at the gompa, the strange, bullying air of the men in white shirts and the predatory gaze of Chairman Khodrak.

“And there’s something else, something that has the others confused. The howlers and the soldiers had a big argument at Yapchi. Tuan and one of Lin’s officers were shouting at each other the night after Tenzin and Lokesh were taken, and the next morning Tuan and all his men were gone.”

Suddenly there was a whistle from across the top of the ridge. A helicopter soared into view, the same sleek machine that had deposited them there the day before. In moments it landed, and two men began unloading several small cartons and nylon bags. In less than five minutes they were done. The men pounded a tall stake into the ground, an orange pennant fixed to the top, and leapt back inside. In seconds the machine was gone.

Winslow leapt to his feet, Somo a step behind him. “I need those supplies!” Larkin called after him, then sighed and sank back against her rock to read her notes.

Ten minutes later Winslow and Somo had returned and the two purba sentries began stealing back along the perimeter of the clearing, having signaled that someone was approaching. The boxes still stood in the center of the field but they had been rearranged. In the center were two figures wearing the coveralls and green helmets Shan and Somo had worn from Golmud. Winslow had fastened a twist of brown grass at the back of one helmet, like a braid of hair. They were dummies, stuffed with the blankets from the shipment, one held up with the stake, the other propped on the boxes. The green figures were slightly bent, as though reading the manifest, their backs toward the path the purbas watched.

“Thirty minutes,” Larkin announced impatiently when the purbas returned. “Thirty minutes and I go out and take my equipment.” But barely five minutes had passed when one of the purbas snapped his fingers and pointed to the north. Shan ventured a glance around the rocks. Three figures had appeared at the top of the trail, and were bent, running for cover.

“That idiot Zhu probably just wants to pilfer some of my supplies,” Larkin fumed. “The little bastard probably sells things on the—” She was interrupted by the sickening crack of a long-range rifle. It shot twice more, and the purbas, their faces drained of color, began pushing Larkin away, down the other side of the ridge.

Shan slipped his head around the rock one more time. The dummies were sprawled over the boxes, one of the helmets in pieces. And from the other side of the clearing strode Special Director Zhu, a hunting rifle perched on his shoulder. His pace was jaunty, as if he were going to collect a trophy.