White Jade (The PROJECT) (25 page)

Chapter Thirty-S
even

In Washington
,
Elizabeth
studied
the
live satellite transmission from nighttime
Tibet
.
S
he
'
d gotten the DIA to task a geostationary satellite to her for the duration of the mission. In daylight, it could define the insignia on a uniform collar
from a hundred and twenty thousand feet up
. At night, the latest infra-red technology tracked any heat source down to the size of a
cigarette
.

Elizabeth
watched
the heat signature of the moving vehicle carrying her team. Nick
'
s coded message confirmed what she
could see
with her own eyes
. T
he
y were
down safe and heading for the ruins.

She zoomed out and scanned the surrounding area for signs of Chinese activity. The town of
Moincer
showed up as a leprous green glow
west
of the moving Humvee
. T
here was no sign of vehicles leaving the town and heading toward the team. So far, so good.

Elizabeth
had no illusions about what would happen if something went wrong
.
Political retaliation would be swift and merciless.
China
was off limits for
armed
covert ops. It helped that the
team
was in a remote region and that it was
n't
in Yang
'
s interest to draw attention there if something happened.

It was a long way to
Tibet
, but Yang was after something important there. Whatever
he
was after, getting to it first would complicate his plans. Whatever complicated Yang
'
s plans was good, so she
'd
ordered the team into action, politics be damned.

She
wondered if
the relationship between Nick and Selena would be a problem in the field. It didn
'
t take a trained observer to see something was going on between them.
Elizabeth
thought they were probably sleeping together, but there
was
some unspoken tension between them. Her first reaction had been to say no when Selena asked to go on the mission
. But she
had skills
needed
to boost the probability of success.
Elizabeth
always decided based on increasing the possibility and measure of success.

So far Homeland Security had not raised the alert level. It was always a difficult problem. Raise the level and get everyone upset, without certainty of attack? Or wait for more intelligence and risk missing the window of opportunity to stop something?

Harker was glad she didn
'
t have to make that decision. In her gut, she felt an attack was coming. She had sounded the alarm; now it was up to others. In the meantime, she was doing what she could to disrupt Yang
'
s plans.

Earlier she
'
d called State to give them a heads up. After the typical shunting around, she had reached the Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, Cheryl Wilson.

"
You
'
re telling me a coup is being planned.
"

"
That is what our best intelligence indicat
es
.
"

"
What is the source of this intelligence?
"

"
I
'
m afraid I can
'
t tell you that, Ma
'
am.
"

"
Are you saying I
'
m not cleared for this information?
"

"
That
'
s correct.
"

There was an audible intake of breath at the other end of the line. It reminded
Elizabeth
of a snake hissing before the strike. There was frost in Wilson
'
s voice when she spoke again.

"
Everything about
China
indicates a strong grasp on power by the party leadership. I cannot conceive of an attempt to overthrow the current regime. Your
intelligence
must be faulty.
"

Wilson
pronounced intelligence as if the word left a bad taste in her mouth.

"
None the less, in our best judgment a coup is in the works.
"
Harker kept the annoyance out of her voice.

"
Well, Director, I appreciate your call but I believe you are barking up the wrong tree. There is no possible way the PRC will undergo a radical change of leadership. I suggest you re-evaluate your sources and stick to your domestic mandate. Now, I have a meeting
to attend
. Was there anything else?
"

No, nothing else, you idiot
, Elizabeth thought
.

"
No, Ma
'
am.
"

"
Then I
'
ll say goodbye.
"
Wilson
hung up.

Elizabeth
resisted the urge to scream. The arrogance of some high-ranking political appointees never failed to amaze her.
T
hey weren
'
t all like that, but with people like
Wilson
having a say in foreign policy it was a miracle the country got along with anyone at all.

On
the monitor
, the satellite images showed the Humvee carrying the team
had
stopped. Dim spots
nearby
showed low level activity. That must be the monastery of Gurugem, Harker thought, and the team is deciding the best way to avoid it. She looked at the series of clocks on the wall. With
almost
six
hours until daylight on the other side of the world, there was still time to get to the ruins before dawn.

Chapter Thirty-
Eight

In the idling Humvee, Carter scanned
a
landscape
turned ghostly green by
his
night vision binoculars.
The
road
they'd
been following turned out of sight beyond the base of
a large
hill
on its way to
the monastery. To the left, a broad valley skirted the hill and headed north. A cold, hard wind
gusted withou
t stopping
against the vehicle.

He
put
the
binoculars down.

"
This should take us close to where we want to go.
"
He traced the valley floor on the map.
"
If we don
'
t run into any obstacles, I think we can get there in
four or five
hours.
"

Selena said, "I have to pee."

Ronnie and Nick began laughing.

"What's so funny?" She felt her face reddening.

"Nothing," Carter said. "Just tension, that's all. Hell, I do too. Pick your restrooms, everyone."

A few minutes later
Ron
nie
put the vehicle in gear and
they
turned up the valley.

The peaks on either side were
bigger than
the highest mountains in the United States
.
T
hey were only foothills to the massive giants not far away. The slopes were bare of vegetation and covered with stony debris and boulders. Lifeless rock stretched
away in every direction
with cold indifference.
I
t
was
like
driving on
an alien planet.

The moon was
almost
down
. T
he stars blazed incandescent overhead
.
Nick
had never seen so many stars
. There were
clouds of stars, bright enough to cast shadows on the valley floor. The
deep black,
star-studded sky seemed to hint at
something
mysterious just out of reach. Under that sky, with towering, snow-covered peaks gleaming in every direction, it was easy to understand why people living here believed these mountains were the home of gods.

"
How are you doing, Selena?
"

"
I
'
ve got a headache, but aside from that, good. I
'
m glad I don
'
t have to hike this right now.
"

"
Take a hit of oxygen. We don
'
t want to get sick up here. We
aren't
used to the altitude, but we won
'
t be here very long.
"

"
I wonder what we
'
re going to find.
"

"
We
'
ll know soon enough,
"
Ron said.
"
W
e
'
re a
bout
four klicks from the ruins.
"

The Humvee
jolted
up
and down across a rough patch of rocks
.
A loud
crack of breaking metal came from the front.
They
slewed to the right in a sliding shower of loose rock and dropped
down
hard
onto a low boulder before
Ronnie
could stop.
He
killed the engine.

"
What was that?
"

"
I don
'
t know,
"
Ronnie said.
"
Didn't sound good.
The steering went.
"

They
got out. The Humvee was hung up on the rock, the right wheel jutting up in the air. Ronnie got out his flash and looked underneath. 

"
Can
'
t see much with all that armor plating.
"
He grasped the tire in his hand. The wheel swung easily back and forth.
"
It looks like we walk. I think a tie rod
or a control arm
must have broken.
"

"
Right, let
'
s get it under cover.
"

They
pulled
the
packs out of the back and covered the vehicle with camouflage netting. The Humvee blended into the landscape.
Nick's
altimeter showed
1
6,
4
00
feet.

They
shouldered packs and began climbing
. They followed a
steep draw, detouring around gigantic boulders and falls of rock. The wind
was relentless,
a freezing,
brittle
wind
.
Loose
stones
rolled
like
uneven
marbles under
foot.
Carter
kept slipping.
His
back was on fire
. H
is
pack felt like it was full of lead.

The sky
showed
signs of dawn
.
He lo
oked at the others. Selena was sweating in the cold air
.
Ronnie looked grim.

"
Let
'
s take a break,
"
he
said.

They
stopped.
He
had to do something about the pain.
He
got
out the
med kit, took out a couple of pain pills
,
thought about it and put one back. This wasn
'
t a good place to risk mistakes in judgment.

T
hree hours after
they'd
left the Humvee,
they
topped the final rise. A cold sun
bathed the mountains
in
brassy, ominous light that offered no comfort from the chill wind. The prospect before
them
was daunting.

The ruins covered the crest of the hill in a jumble of stone. The outer walls were
twenty
feet high
,
built of flat stones fitted together
. They
stretch
ed
for
over
a hundred yards in each direction to form an outer square.
T
umbled
gaps
gaped
in the walls where stones had fallen.
A
building topped by a
tall,
stepped, pyramid-
shaped
roof
dominated the center of the compound
.

Carter
pictured attacking those walls on foot with spears and swords and bows and arrows. In its day, the fortress would have been impregnable.

The silence was immense
. T
he only sound
was
the constant
keening of
wind through the ruin
s
.

The
mountain
dropped away
from where they stood
in a sweeping
vista of
snow-capped mountains and valleys.
A
waterfall that must have been two thousand feet high dropped straight down to
a river
winding below
along the valley floor.
A
herd of yaks
grazed
on the side of a mountain in the distance, thirty or forty tiny black dots. A lone, golden eagle glided
past,
a thousand
feet below.

Carter
had
never seen space like that. It wasn
'
t only that the mountains were big
. I
t was the distance around them, the way they forced themselves up into the thin sky. The scale of nature was overwhelming. It made
him
feel the size of an ant.

He
consulted his GPS and
pointed at a spot on one of the satellite photos.

"
We
'
re here, at the southwest corner of the outer walls. These four lines look like
streets
between buildings.
We
'
ll go along this wall and follow one in.
"

"
They all converge at the center,
"
Selena said,
"
at the building and the
square around it.
"

"
Isn
'
t the center a big deal
in these parts
?
"

"
Yes.
Mt.
Kailash
, over that way, was supposed to be the center of the world. That building is the center of this complex and the cavern is under it.
"

Ronnie spoke up.
"
Then why don
'
t we start there?
"

Another pre-coded burst let Harker know
they
had arrived and were proceeding.
Carter
put the phone back in
his
pocket and
they
set out along the west wall. Halfway down,
they
came to
what was left of
a gateway. The gate was long gone. A broad uneven avenue of frost-heaved grayish stone led straight toward
the
building
with the
pyramid spire at the center.

They
headed in. Standing walls of
gray
stone and piles of rubble lined the street.
Selena pointed out a
carving
of a giant bird on a tall, weathered column of rock.

"
That
'
s a garuda, same as the book name.
"

"
What
were
all these buildings
for
?
"

"
Shops, quarters, stables. This place is a small city.
"

The wind moaned through the deserted
stones
, lifting a thin, gritty dust into the air. Selena paused at a building on the edge of the square
. The roof was still intact.
She stepped inside
, into the ruins of a broad atrium
.

The floor of the atrium was about thirty feet square.
U
neven colored tiles formed an elaborate picture on the floor.
Lichen grew between the tiles and m
any of the pieces were missing, but the design was still clear enough.

At the corners, curled leopards stood guard. In the center
,
a woman reclined on a low couch with curved ends. She wore a blue robe
. She had
long, black
,
curling hair
circled by a gold band
. Three women
in robes of white
attended
her
. O
ne play
ed
a flute, another b
ore
a basket of fruit, a third pour
ed
wine from a jug. All three had black
,
curly hair bound with a headband and lifelike eyes
made from
black and gold tiles. Above the scene, two women rode in a chariot, blond hair streaming behind them. The chariot was pulled by two winged griffins. Above everything flew a large bird.

"
Th
is is
Cretan,
"
said Selena.
"
This is amazing
.
The one with the wine is pouring from an amphora.
It's
definitely Minoan. Paintings similar to this were found in a Minoan burial chamber in
Northern Crete
. The women in the chariot are probably goddesses
, maybe
escorts to guide the soul to the afterlife.
"