The Chinese Agenda (13 page)

thrust a foot through the thin crust of snow into the rocks beneath. The monastery appeared to have been constructed as much for defense as for prayer. The walls were massive; huge blocks of stone piled fifteen feet or more high and ten feet thick, each carved from the granite of the mountain. They reached the top of the wall and went up slowly to the battlements to where Levcock and Rodek were leaning against an abattoir that jutted abruptly above the level of the wall. Both were staring off to the northeast through binoculars.

Tones called out and, startled, Rodek swung around with his carbine ready, then lowered it and waved a hand as he recognized them. Gillon walked along the wall to where Leycock waited, and accepted the proffered glasses.

At first glance, the pass below was empty of all but wind and snow. The moon, now well clear of the ridge, flooded the snow-covered terrain with a harsh white light that provided better visibility than he had expected.

Leycock nudged his arm and pointed. lust over there, below that pinnacle.'

Gillon shifted the glasses until he caught a flicker of movement in the shadows beneath the towering rock spire. A moment later. a line of men and animals emerged into the moonlight.

'My God,' he exclaimed. 'There must he a hundred people in that . . . that . . . what in hell are they?'

'Some kind of caravan, I guess.' Leycock answered. 'I thought caravans had disappeared years ago.'

'Apparently not.' Gillon muttered. 'Are you sure they aren't Chinese soldiers?'

Levcock shrugged. 'As far as I can see, they don't look like soldiers. And if they were, why would they be traveling with camels?'

'But,' Gillon countered with a question of his own, • 'if they aren't soldiers, why are they traveling at night?'

'That's what's got me worrying,' Jones said as he came up and took the glasses. Gillon pointed out the location and Tones spent several long minutes studying the distant figures.

'Damn,' he said finally.

Dmietriev questioned Rodek in Russian and Gillon half listened as he used his own glasses now to watch the caravan. Rodek protested and Dmietriev spoke again, more forcefully this time, and still Rodek disagreed. Finally Dmietriev shrugged and borrowed Gillon's glasses. After a moment, he nodded to Rodek.

`What is it?' Stowe demanded.

'Sergeant Rodek thinks that the caravan is composed of nomads, probably from somewhere in the Dzungarian region or perhaps from further east ih Inner Mongolia.'

`Nomads,' Stowe snorted. 'You mean like Tartars and Mongols? Nonsense ...'

`Not Tartars,' Dmietriev interrupted. 'Probably Mongols of some kind. There are a few of the ancient Khanates left that still use the caravan trails. That is the reason for this monastery. Why else do you suppose it was built in the middle of nowhere? It is part of the eastward chain of Persian caravanserai.'

Stowe shrugged. 'How the hell should I know? You're supposed to provide the local color.'

Àre you saying then,' Jones interjected, 'that these people are traveling some kind of caravan route and are not out looking for us?'

'I do not see how they could be searching for us already. Certainly there would have been no time to bring that many men and animals into these mountains. I doubt very much that they have even heard of us. I do not know a great deal about caravans, but it would seem to me to be very early in the season for them to be traveling and very late at night as well. I would guess that they are starting early to be as far ahead of the other caravans as possible. Probably, the authorities do not even know they are on the trail.'

The six of them were silent for a moment. Jones's face was, for a short time, a study in indecision. Then, abruptly, he made up his mind.

'We had better get the hell out of here, no matter who they are. Chuck, you and Andre go down and smooth out the tracks we left in the courtyard as much as you can. Mike, check outside and do the same thing.'

Stowe nodded and Dmietriev and Leycock followed him down the steps. Jones glanced at Rodek and casually stepped around so that his back was to the Russian. Rodek ignored them and went back to the wall to watch the caravan.

'I don't know who this traveling menagerie is, but it seems mighty damned coincidental to me that they show up now. It could be that Dmietriev is right and they are just trying to get the jump on the competition, but I still think it's better that we get out of here and the faster the better.'

'Yeah,' Gillon nodded. 'I don't like the idea that they are still traveling this late at night.'

He went back to the wall and studied the caravan once more. The moonlight was too dim to show more than the grossest details, but that was sufficient to show the strength of the approaching party. The entire scene was right out of The Arabian Nights, he decided. Large, swaying camels plodded along under heavy burdens paced by men muffled and swathed in greatcoats against the bitter chill. They came steadily on and without a doubt now, the monastery was their destination.

'Come on, let's go,' Jones muttered, and started for the steps. Rodek followed and Gillon put his glasses away and started after then.

'I just thought of something else, too,' Gillon called after Jones. 'If they are going to stop here, they may be crossing the pass . . . hell, they will be crossing the pass. We could have them dogging our trail for the next couple of days.'

Jones nodded and kept on. 'Yeah, you could be right. We'll just have to be extra damned careful, then.'

Gillon followed Rodek down the steps wondering how much of the exchange the Russian had understood. He knew less about him than about any of the others. He had had a chance to observe Jones, Leycock and Stowe on the long flight from Rome . . . although he had to admit that most of what he knew about their backgrounds had come from Jones. About Dmietriev, he knew little more than that he was an excellent shot, fast as a striking snake, and a good actor, all of which he would have expected from a Soyiet intelligence field agent, or any nation's field agent for that matter. But. Rodek was a blank. The fact that he spoke, or pretended to speak no English led him to think that the Soviets were still playing their own game. Until Rodek decided to break his zombie-like silence, there was little more that he could learn about him.

Dmietriev and Stowe were waiting for them and they trudged through the gateway, where Leycock joined them. They had fashioned drags using their packs and they pulled these along behind to obscure the tracks they left in the snow. Jones, led them to the south until the monastery was between them and the approaching caravan. He stopped here and, using his flashlight, unfolded the map and knelt down in the snow while the others gathered around. He traced out the route to the rendezvous. The way that had been marked would take them across the plateau to skirt Isskgal Glacier and then three miles southwest to Musart Pass at 11,480 feet. That meant a climb of nearly four thousand feet in less than three miles. Jones wanted to clear the pass before sunrise if possible and make camp on the far side for the day. They would then trek down through the trees after nightfall to about ten thousand feet, bypass the Jiparleth Glacier and into the heavy forest the second day to be in position for the rendezvous at dawn on the third day. There was a heated discussion as to the wisdom of following the marked route. Stowe objected on the grounds that as the Chinese had been able to discover the existence of the mission, they could very well he in possession of their route of march. He argued hard for an alternate route that would take them northeast, even farther away from the suspected crash site and down through a low valley in a lengthy circuitous route that would add fifteen miles to the march.

Jones finally cut the discussion off by getting to his feet and picking up his pack and carbine.

Ìf nothing else, the Chinese won't know the route. I laid it out while the rest of you were sleeping. Also,' he continued, 'these winds will wipe out any tracks in a few hours.' But Stowe was unconvinced and continued to press for the circular route to the northeast, claiming that the safest approach lay from the opposite direction. When Jones refused angrily, pointing out that they

lacked the time to make the longer trek, Stowe stamped off to gather up his pack without another word.

Because of the winds that swept up the pass throughout the long winter, the frozen snow was packed to the consistency of sand and neither snowshoes nor skis were needed. Jones set a strong, ground-covering pace across the plateau and as the terrain shelved up, switched to alternating the rest step with trail stride every five minutes. By 0500, the top of the pass was in sight although still a thousand feet above them and dawn was an hour and a half away. The wind, as it swept out of the Arctic and down across the vast Russian steppes for hundreds of miles to the mountain harrier of the Tien Shan, where it was compressed as it forced its way through the high passes, was, luckily, behind them and tended to help rather than hinder their progress. The same wind blew incessantly, rarely varying more than a few miles an hour from its average speed of twenty knots. But vicious storms were common throughout the long winter and then the wind speed might exceed eighty miles an hour. For now, it blew steadily against their backs, urging them on while at the same time chilling each man to the bone in spite of their protective clothing. To keep moving and exercising was the only way to keep from freezing to death when out of the shelter of trees or tents. In spite of the compression that raised the wind's temperature as it blew up through the passes, the equivalent temperature, combining ambient temperature and wind speed, was still well below 0° F.

Musart Pass was typical of the high Tien Shan. A wide pass, it was some three miles from side to side at the base. The approach from the northwestern slopes was exceedingly steep, almost fourteen hundred feet per mile. Halfway up the slope, it looked to Gillon, seeing it for the first time in the strong moonlight, as if it were a spillway into a vast bowl and he was trapped on the underside, struggling to reach the rim. High ridges of stone lined the approaches on either side, but even though some of them reared a thousand feet above the floor of the pass, they were dwarfed into insignificance by the immensity of the mountains around them. The way was smooth and the snow level, covering every possible obstruction to a depth of several feet. The terrain under the snow would be a coarse gravel, he knew, and there was no possibility that any living thing, plant or animal, could survive the continual winds. And in spite of its being hard-packed, a sudden spurt of wind could still whirl icy streamers from the surface that eroded the exposed skin like a sandblaster. Without snow masks and goggles they would have risked blindness.

For one eternal hour they plodded upward, strung out like bugs on a string, their trail stride having completely given way to the rest step. At eleven thousand feet Jones called a brief halt and they huddled together as best they could to escape the incessant icy searching of the wind. To talk was impossible and they squatted behind their packs like exhausted animals, breathing heavily into gloved hands. Gillon felt as if his lungs were constricted by a steel band that. tightened with each successive step until it seemed as if his ribs would collapse. His back and legs were weak with tension and fatigue and it required a conscious effort to move each foot forward again and yet again. In spite of the aspirins, nausea tore at his stomach and every now and then he would be jerked to a halt as one of the men behind him paused to retch and vomit. Each time, Gillon signaled Jones by yanking the line and Jones stopped to wait impatiently for the second tug from Gillon that started him forward again like a machine. Only one other time in the long hours of steady climbing did Jones pause to rest. Incessantly, he pulled them forward by his own sheer determination.

For a long time, the top of the pass seemed to come no nearer and Gillon was reduced to the old climber's trick of forbidding himself to look at the crest again. He concentrated his whole being on shifting first one leg forward, pause, then shift the other again and once again in the incessant, maddening rest step that continues to carry you forward long after you would have sworn that you had no strength left at all. His back and hips were on fire from the weight of the pack, and

the carbine, light as it was, dragged down at his right shoulder until it was all he could do to keep from throwing it away. Then the thirst, the terrible thirst of high-altitude exertion, began to make itself felt. At these altitudes and in winter the humidity is close to non-existent. The continual gasping for breath exposes the membranes of the mouth to the air, which greedily extracts their moisture. That, coupled with intense exertion, dehydrates the body quickly and it becomes impossible to force water into tissues in sufficient quantities to replace that lost to the air. Intense exertion at high altitudes then becomes a race against fatigue and dehydration, complicated by lack of oxygen for starved body tissue.

The darkness in those places shadowed from the moon, drifted away into a grayish sea that obscured the ridges on either side of the pass. Gillon gradually became aware that the slope had changed and when, forgetting his promise not to look up, he raised his eyes, he saw that the endless expanse of white was no longer above them but was now slipping away beneath his feet to a distant line of dark rock below. He glanced back over his shoulder and, in the gathering light, could see the straggling figures of the others strung out behind on the line. Their movements as they staggered up the killing slope were reminiscent of dangling fish.

Jones had stopped. Gillon closed the twenty-foot gap between them and they both sank down in the snow breathing heavily, and waited for the others to come up. For several minutes there was only the wind and the sound of their gasping before Dmietriev trudged up and collapsed beside them.

'Downslope . . . three miles . . . or more,' he rasped finally, 'trees begin,'

Jones nodded but said nothing, rubbing his forehead as Rodek and Leycock straggled in. It was too cold to rest for long: