The Chinese Agenda (18 page)

'Stop it, both of you,' Dmietriev hissed through clenched teeth. 'If either of you ever does that again, I'll kill him ... kill him. Do you understand?'

Gillon started forward but Dmietriev cocked the pistol. 'Stop or I will kill you . . .' he warned, and from his voice Gillon knew that he would and without hesitation. He stepped back, breathing hard, and stared at Stowe.

`You almost ... killed ... me.'

'It was an accident,' Stowe replied coldly. 'The line slipped through my hands when you fell.'

Àccident hell. Just plain rotten carelessness and stupidity. Nothing else.'

`Silence!' Dmietriev snapped. 'You will both be silent! This is neither the time nor the place to debate accident or carelessness.'

Gillon knew he was right and, with an immense effort of selfcontrol, choked back his anger. He turned without a word, picked up the rope and handed it to Dmietriev. .Stowe climbed to his feet.

Ìf he goes near that line, shoot him.' Gillon jerked a thumb at Stowe.

`Where are ...

`To get the fuse.'

Without another word, Gillon walked down to the ridge and climbed over onto the snow pack. He edged out onto the icy part of the pack and, using his ice ax, chopped a series of parallel steps across the shallowest part of the slope. If he was guessing right, the fuse would have-unrolled its full length and should be somewhere straight ahead. The moon had risen higher until it was now well clear of the peaks. Its bright light flooded the snowfield, making it difficult to see through the glare.

It was nearly ten minutes before his groping hand brushed the wire. He dug his feet in securely and took a turn in the line around his wrist, leaving plenty of slack so that he would not accidentally pull the charges free. A gentle tug told him that at least the second charge was still secure.

With a smooth overhand motion, he began pulling in the loose end of the fuse line. It came freely enough and he coiled it around his hand and elbow until the free end snaked up. Breathing easier, he recrossed the slope.

Gillon, Stowe and Dmietriev crouched beneath a rock outcropping fifty feet above the pass and well away from the path the avalanche would take. The position provided an uninterrupted view down the pass in both directions. On the southern side, he could just make out Leycock's form through the glasses, as he zigzagged down the slope toward the trees to warn Rodek and Jones to be ready to move. On the north slope, the Chinese troops were visible in the bright moonlight, a third of the way up the pass. Stowe nudged Dmietriev and pointed. Dmietriev raised his glasses and stared in the direction of the pointing finger, then nodded, muttering to himself in Russian. Stowe and Gillon had maintained a strained silence throughout the past half-hour during which they had circled down the ridge to the top of the pass. They had awakened Leycock, and Gillon had sent him down to warn Jones and Rodek. Then they had crossed the top of the pass and climbed the north ridge to the ledge on which they were presently sheltering against the stiff wind that had arisen in the past hour. Try as he might, Gillon had been unable to fathom Stowe. He was certain that Stowe realized that his carelessness had almost cost him his life, yet his attitude suggested that he was totally unconcerned. Gillon debated the problem in his mind as they waited. Was Stowe really lacking in concern, or were his actions deliberate? If, in fact, he really did not care, then Gillon wanted to be rid of him now, before he did kill someone. The way he felt right now, he might even volunteer to shoot him. And, if his actions were deliberate, then Stowe was a plant, pure and simple. Yet he could not reconcile that possibility with Stowe's apparent concern for Jones after the Chinese general had hit him with the pistol. He shrugged and went back to studying the-pass. The problem would have to be ironed out with Jones, and soon. The Chinese troops, obviously fresh and used to the high altitude, were making excellent time. Through his glasses, he could make out the tiny dots that were the soldiers against moonlit snow. His plan was to set off the charges after the soldiers had passed the halfway point. There would then be no chance that any of them could reach the bottom and safety on their skis. Any higher and the pass narrowed to such an extent that they might be able to reach the high ridges along the sides. He said as much and Dmietriev grunted -ledgment; for once Stowe did not argue, but agreed readily. The three men looked at one another; then each, knowing what had to be done, turned away.

Dmietriev attached the fuse to the flashlight, working slowly and deliberately, and when he had finished, glanced expectantly at Gillon. Gillon watched the soldiers for a moment, until he knew he must delay no longer.

`Ready?' he asked.

`Ready,' Dmietriev repeated. Stowe shifted position, but said nothing. Gillon nodded and continued to watch through the binoculars. The troops were spread out in a line approximately seventy feet long. They were not roped together but trudged steadily on, heads down and concentrating on their footing. Each man carried ski poles, which he used to aid himself in the climb. Skis strapped to their backs appeared as outlandish feathers above the cowled heads.

`What are you waiting for?' Stowe muttered. The lead man was almost even with the rock projection to the right side of the pass that Gillon had selected as the marker. He took a deep breath and beside him felt Dmietriev tense.

As if warned by some extrasensory feeling, the lead man stopped and raised his head to scan the top of the pass.

`Now,' Gillon exhaled, and Dmietriev pressed the button.

For an instant nothing happened and Gillon looked at Dmietriev as he calmly pressed the button a second time. Snow erupted in triple fountains above them and three distinct booms rolled down the pass.

Gillon pressed his eyes to the glasses again and caught the trapped figures in the circle of moonlight. The lead man was staring wildly around him, pointing at the snow pack that had just begun to shift. As if in slow motion, the troopers began to run, some back down the pass, some toward the nearer, right-hand side. Gillon knew they would never make it. One figure, more clear-headed than the rest, was already fastening skis onto his feet. Gillon swung around in time to see the leading edge of the snow mass dissolve into a vast spray. It hung for

an instant in midair, then with the grace and beauty of an ocean wave in crystal form, it began to fall in a long curve of ice until it touched the slope below. There it rebounded high into the air to touch down again further downslope, until within seconds, the whole snow pack was flowing downhill as if it were a giant tsunami, sweeping all before it. Gillon followed it until the leading edge gathered in the first of the fleeing figures and boiled them under. Only the man on skis, now well ahead of the raging wave, stood any chance at all. Gillon watched in an agony of doubt, fear, guilt and at the same time, a fierce elation at the thought the man might survive, might outrace the deadly mass of snow filling the pass with thunder.

The trooper was losing ground but still there was a chance. Dmietriev was already sighting his carbine, even though it was an impossible shot; then the soldier made the mistake that killed him. He should have waited a few seconds more before starting his turn to the side of the pass but the thunder of the snow behind must have driven him to panic and he attempted a stem christi at too high a speed. His downhill ski pole turned under the impact and he went down in a flurry of snow. The avalanche roared over him in an instant, leaving behind only a vast sea of moving snow. A moment later, the avalanche spilled out into the wide entrance as avalanches had done for millions of years and the immense sound died away. Gillon stood up, shaking violently, aware of the sound and its power only now that it was gone.

Sunset of the third day in the Tien Shan. Jones held up his hand and brought the party to a halt just inside a thick stand of trees lining the rim of a well-hidden, narrow canyon. Gillon glanced over his shoulder to see Stowe raise his hand to signal the two Russians and Ley-cock, who were out of his sight in the trees. Overhead, he could barely hear the distant aircraft. All day the persistent whine of searching aircraft had been with them but the dense spruce and pine forest through which they were traveling had concealed them well, making it possible for them to move by daylight. Consequently, they had made up the time lost at the pass, and the rendezvous, set for dawn on the fourth day, would be kept.

Jones swept the canyon and the forest beyond with binoculars and while he was thoroughly engrossed in his examination, Gillon took advantage of the moment to study him. If ever a man had traveled on sheer willpower alone, Jones surely had. Following the long hours of rest, he seemed to have recovered somewhat and for two days now he had pushed them on, resolutely ignoring all appeals to consider his own health. Although they had covered nearly thirty miles through the high mountains on snowshoes and skis in the two days since the avalanche, Jones had become progressively weaker, stumbling several times in the late afternoon. For the last mile of travel, he had leaned heavily on Gillon for support, cursing his own weakness over and over under his breath until Gillon told him to shut up.

Gillon shoved his ski poles into the snow, shrugged out of his pack and plodded across the knee-deep snow carrying his own glasses to where Jones stood. The slope, falling away steeply at their feet, was relatively free of vegetation, but for scattered underbrush thrusting branch tips above the snow blanket. The bottom of the canyon showed a thin depression running through its center. Probably a small stream, Gillon thought, long since frozen and covered over with snow. Aspens lined either bank in thick stands and straggled up the eastern slope to blend with the spruce and fir that reached to the rim. The aspens were so dense that in places it was difficult to see the snow in the fading light through their bare branches. Gillon traced the stream's course upstream to where it curved sharply and disappeared around a bend. Somewhere beyond that point, he knew, was the rendezvous. Jones had confided to him last night that they were to march along the stream bed for three miles, then wait for Jack Liu in a stand of trees, a stand that was to be identified by its mixture of pines and hardwood, the only one of its kind along the stream bed.

'Let's get a camp set up,' Jones said abruptly, as if to cut off the discussion of his health that he knew Gillon and Stowe, trudging up behind, were about to begin. He turned away and shuffled back to the clearing, where Leycock and Dmietriev were coming in. Gillon and Stowe stared after him for a moment, then both shook their heads and followed. A quick, hot supper, cooked over Primus stoves, was eaten in silence. Without allowing any argument Jones set the watches, took the first one himself and built a small fire for warmth. They all knew that it was useless to argue with him by now and within minutes, all had turned in while Jones began to pace slowly through the camp. Gillon awoke an hour later. He lay still, his fingers curling around the butt of his pistol beneath the rolled-up parka that served as a pillow, wondering what had awakened him.

`Gillon

!'

The whisper was repeated again, this time with a ferocity that surprised him. In his halfawake, half-asleep condition, it was several seconds before he realized that Jones was outside the tent.

'Jones ... ?' he whispered back.

'Yeah . . . get dressed and out here, quick! Bring your snowshoes.'

Gillon needed no more urging than that and a few moments later, he pushed open the tent flap and wriggled out. He glanced at his watch, illuminated by the feeble light of the fire; 2000 hours, he shook his head. What the hell was Jones up to? he wondered. Gillon slipped around the side of the tent, taking care to be certain that Dmietriev did not see him. Jones saw him coming and motioned to him to be quiet and follow. Once away from the firelight, it was pitch black. Gillon banged into a tree and, cursing under his breath, felt his way along, wondering what the devil was going on. A few moments later, a hand grasped his wrist and a tiny circle of light showed at his feet.

`Get your snowshoes on,' Jones whispered.

He knelt and snapped on the snowshoes, completely puzzled now by Jones's actions. Jones grabbed his wrist again and for the next half-hour, they moved quickly through the forest, the narrow beam of the flashlight leading the way until finally, Jones edged into a small clearing and stopped.

'We should be safe enough here,' he said quietly, and dropped down onto a fallen log. The fast pace Jones had set through the trees coupled with the grogginess of insufficient sleep had left Gillon irritable and exhausted. Nevertheless, he sat down, laid the carbine across his lap and unfastened the snowshoes so that he could sit comfortably. 'What's all this nonsense . . . ?' he started. But Jones held up a hand.

`Wait now . . . give me a chance to catch my breath.'

He flicked off the flashlight and total darkness enveloped them. For several minutes they sat in silence while the thin noises of the forest gradually became audible around them. Distant cracks as live wood contracted in the cold; a faint stirring of wind among the snow-laden branches and occasionally, a soft plop somewhere as a branch dropped its burden of snow. Gillon was impressed with the absence of animal noises. There were no animal sounds at all; any that could survive nine-thousand-foot altitudes in winter were usually hibernating animals.

Jones finally broke the silence. 'I wanted to get you out here so that I could fill you in on what's happening,' he began, keeping his voice low, barely above a whisper. 'I figure that I can trust you more than any of the others.'

Startled at the unexpected admission, it took Gillon a moment to recover. 'Why?' he asked flatly.

Àll right, if you want to know why, I'll tell you,'

Jones answered without hesitation. 'Dmietriev I can't trust because he is a Russian and I know damned well he has his own set of orders that supersede any of my instructions if things should get tight. That's a fact of life, like it or leave it. Same for Rodek, and besides, if he speaks English, he isn't letting on. Stowe, never! Stowe is a born troublemaker and if we ever get out of