The Chinese Agenda (27 page)

Gillon nodded. He was surprised to see that the jackets and leggings these men wore could have come from the military surplus shelves of any Western nation. All but one old man wore various shades of drab-colored, cold-weather gear. The old man, however, wore the padded or quilted clothing that Gillon had always associated with Mongolians. In addition to the padded jacket and leggings, his hat was the typical lined helmet with earflaps worn throughout Siberia and China. Gillon shook his head; the old ways were disappearing all over the world and even in the remotest backwoods of Asia, modern technology had arrived with a vengeance.

A, moment later, the same old man who had laid the tarps and furs entered with a hissing Coleman lantern, which he hung from a peg hammered into the centre pole; he bowed to the six men seated on the far side of the fire and left.

`Now the serious talk begins,' Liu whispered. 'That old man with the padded jacket is the overall leader. Caravans like these are sent out from a winter village under a caravan master. But the elders still make all final decisions and even though the carayan master is the supreme authority on the trail, he can still be overruled in matters of policy not directly relating to the running of the caravan by this council.'

Gillon nodded, understanding now why the caravan master's decision had been overturned.

The old man spoke quickly to the others seated beside him, then turned to study the five outsiders searchingly. He asked one question and Liu squirmed uncomfortably before launching into a long speech that caused the elders to look at one another in surprise several times. Liu spoke forcefully and at length, and when he finished, it was on a challenging note. The old man

answered in a brief speech, during which the caravan master squirmed angrily, then he sat back and waited.

Liu turned to Gillon and spoke past him to the rest, his voice pitched low, his face carefully concealing the trouble that Gillon saw in his eyes. 'Listen to me, carefully. Don't let anything show when I tell you what they said, do you understand? If they see the least bit of emotion, they'll throw us all out. Do you understand?' he repeated. They all nodded and Liu stared hard at Stowe. `Do you understand? We aren't playing around here. This isn't Washington behind some nice safe desk with a big map stuck full of pins.'

Surprisingly enough, Stowe nodded, his demeanor as serious as the situation warranted.

'Okay,' Liu said, relief evident in his voice. 'They say that they will not grant us a place in the caravan. They say it was foolish of the caravan master to do so in the first place. They say that they are at peace with the Communist government in Peking and they want to keep it that way. The elders overruled him and that's quite a rebuke and he doesn't like it. But he has no choice. He must do what they decide.'

`So that leaves us out in the cold, no pun intended.'

Liu shook his head. 'No, at least not for tonight. They'll let you stay until dawn, then will allow you one day's travel.'

'What the devil does that mean?' Leycock demanded.

'That means that they will not try and turn you in for at least twenty-four hours after you leave the camp. It seems that the Chinese have placed a pretty big price on your head . . . enough to keep this caravan and the village it comes from in luxury for twenty years. The Chinese are offering the equivalent of fifty thousand American dollars for your capture. So you can see, it's a mighty big temptation to them.'

Gillon rubbed the back of his neck. 'So, after we leave, we have twenty-four hours in which to get the hell out of this area. Do these people have a radio?'

`No, but they can build a pretty sizable fire and it won't take long for one of the search planes to find them. I'd say within thirty-six hours of the time you leave the caravan, the Chinese will know you've been here. Look, I've an idea. We aren't dead yet . . . I don't think they really want to risk giving themselves away if they can help it.'

Liu stared across the fire at the old man for a long moment and he in turn watched Liu without a trace of emotion. The inside of the yurt was growing steadily warmer as the fire in the brazier caught hold and burned more fiercely. Gillon was sweating copiously inside his cold-weather gear. He wondered how the Kalmucks endured the heat, but they gave no sign of being uncomfortable. In addition to the heat, the acrid smoke bit into his lungs and stung his eyes. At first the yurt had been a grateful change from the angry wind and cold outside, but now Gillon was no longer so certain which he preferred. Liu talked for what seemed like hours and the five elders stared at him across the campfire, seemingly never blinking and never moving. Gillon found his head nodding once and he forced himself stiffly upright in an effort to stay awake. He risked a quick glance at the others and saw that they were all fighting the same battle. Dmietriev, seated next to him, was running with sweat and as he turned back, he caught the gaze of one of the old men sitting on the far right of the fire. He thought he saw a _hint of amusement at their sweating faces, but the man's eye went quickly back to Liu. Laugh, you bastard, he thought.

Finally, Liu stopped talking. 'We may be getting somewhere at last,' he muttered to Gillon. 'I've found a bargaining point, one besides money. The Peking government, no matter how grateful they should ever be for their help, will never let them have more than small-caliber, single-shot rifles for hunting. These people think that guns are an invention of the gods. So, if we offer them rifles in addition to matching the fiftythousand-dollar reward, they may change their minds.'

Gillon thought for a moment. 'Why not offer them AR-18s? That should impress the hell out of them.'

Liu nodded and spoke to the elder, who sat up quickly, his stiff face cracking with interest for the first time. Gillon unslung his carbine and tossed it over the fire to the old man, who snatched it gracefully from the air. He called out in Mongolian and a moment later, a young man entered the tent. The old man handed him the carbine with a series of quick instructions and he went out. A moment later, Gillon heard the sharp, fast-paced snapping of the carbine being fired and the young man came back into the tent holding the AR-18 in one hand and his own ancient shotgun in the other. He handed the AR-18 to the old man and nodded. Gillon could see the excitement in his eyes.

The elder pointed to Gillon and the man stepped around the fire and handed it back to him. Gillon ejected the clip, stuck it in his pocket and inserted a new one, slid a cartridge into the chamber and reslung the rifle, staring at the elder all the time.

'Ask him,' Gillon said to Liu, 'if two hundred of these rifles and .a thousand rounds of ammunition each, de livered to him across the border in Afghanistan plus fifty thousand dollars is satisfactory payment for passage with the caravan until we reach the crossing point?'

Liu nodded and spoke to the elders once more. They argued in whispers among themselves until the old man waved a hand sharply and looked up. He appeared to be searching Gillon's face for any sign of deceit, then dismissed him abruptly, nodded to Liu and spoke at some length. When he finished, Liu translated briefly.

'He says, all right. They will be waiting for the delivery at a pass known as Dahnash-kol in mid-July. They will take my guarantee of payment . . . and you realize that if payment isn't made, I'm as good as dead?'

Gillon nodded. 'I'll see that the carbines are delivered. Don't worry about that. The only thing that would stop me is if we don't make it out of here.'

'Yeah, they recognized that fact right away. They figure it's their tough luck if you don't, but once you leave the caravan, they won't do a thing to help you: This isn't their problem and the rifles and the favor they owe me are the only things that persuaded them to help you.'

The five old men and the caravan master got to their feet and without a backward glance

,trooped out. Lin

stood up and the rest of them got to their feet as well, stretching and shedding jackets immediately.

'This is where you stay for tonight . . . they want you where they can keep an eye on you. My people are quartered with the rest of the camp and since we've spent time with them before, they won't guard us too closely. But they do,' Liu warned, 'put sentries around the camp at night. These hills used 'to be full of bandits and south, toward civilization, they still are. The guards are in two concentric rings and you would have no chance of sneaking past them. The penalty for a guard allowing anyone in or out without permission, is death by dismemberment and it ain't a pretty way to go. So they stay on their toes.'

The door pushed open and four Kalmucks stepped in carrying their packs and snowshoes, which they tossed onto the floor. One of them stared around at the men, uttered one word, spit on the floor, then stalked out.

'He called you barbarians,' Liu said wryly. 'The fact that you will equip them all with new weapons means nothing. They could just as easily haye slit your throats and taken the ones you have now, but the headman has put them under orders not to do so. You have their hospitality and as long as you don't abuse it, they will leave you strictly alone. So don't expect any favors. If you can't keep up, or if you violate any of their rules, you've had it.'

'Nice people,' Leycock muttered.

'Don't forget, these people once ruled half the known world, the largest empire ever assembled. On top of that they've managed to survive war after war and attempt after attempt to kill them off. If they think they are kings of the world, you sure as hell are not going to change their minds. They'll use you only as long as they think there is something to he gained; once they get what they want, or figure that they no longer stand a chance, they'll throw you to the wolves.'

'Yeah . . . I guess you're right. But it doesn't make me feel any better. I don't like being anybody's poor relation.'

Liu laughed at that. 'A poor choice of words, my friend. You don't even rate as high as a poor relation.

They take care of their own. Strangers are fair game ... but only after the rules of hospitality have been met.' Liu, still grinning, motioned to Gillon to follow him outside. Gillon nodded and pulled his parka on, tugged the hood down as low as it would go and followed Liu outside into the mounting wind and cold. Gillon had forgotten, in the brief hour they had been inside the yurt, Just how cold it could be outside in the wind – and how fresh the air could seem as well. Liu led him away from the yurt toward the main fire, which was burning in fitful gusts, yet still casting some warmth. Liu stopped beside it and stamped his feet, swinging his arms at the same time to keep warm.

`Damn, it's cold. I'm sure glad they decided to keep us tonight.'

Àmen.'

Liu pivoted around, staring into the darkness, then went back to swinging his arms, assured now that nobody was in earshot – even though the wind would have made it impossible for anybody more than a few feet away to overhear what he said.

`You know, old buddy, we haven't had time to talk over old times,' Liu clasped his hands behind his back and stared into the fire.

Gillon waited, wondering what Liu was leading up to.

'Of course,' he went on, 'that scene in Laos is not something you can really look back on as a good time. Not any of it.

`How are your legs? They don't seem to be bothering you.'

Gillon shook his head. 'Okay. The doctors said that only one bone was broken.'

Gillon half turned to face him, 'You know, I never really did get a chance to thank you. By the time I knew what was happening, you were gone and I always did wonder where.'

. Liu flashed him a grin. 'And now you know, don't you? Two years,' he muttered half to himself. 'Two years in this damned icebox. Freeze in .the winter, roast in the summer and run like hell all year round . . . but

this is it, the end of the tour. We are on the way out now and nothing is going to stop us.'

`Then what?'

Liu watched the fire dancing in the wind for a moment. 'I don't really know. I haven't thought much about it. I guess I'll go home for a while and try and figure out what I want to do with the rest of my life.'

`Where's home, now?' Gillon asked, and instantly regretted the question. Liu turned his head and Gillon saw the puzzlement in his eyes, even though his face was half hidden by the hood. He shook his head. 'That too is a very good question. I don't know ally more. When I was a kid, it was Southern California. After college, it was Taiwan. Now ...

'What about you?' Liu asked.

Gillon laughed at that. 'Hell, man, I don't any more know than you do. Once 1 thought I did, now the only thing I know is that I don't know.'

Àsia has a way of doing that to you,' Liu said quietly. `When you first get here, you think, man-oh-man, I know exactly what I'm going to do and it's right; there's just no argument about it. Then, after you've been here awhile and see some of what is really happening, you begin to wonder. You think . .. these people are getting killed in droves and they don't even know why. They go out without a whimper . . . have been for thousands of years. It's no different today than when Genghis Khan or Tamerlane came through here. Then we send our own people over and they get killed and don't know why either. No one out here knows Communism from a hole in the ground or democracy or anything else either, and you begin to wonder if it's worth all the pain and killing to try to teach them. Then after you've been here a year or two you are pretty damned certain that

.. . like you said . the only thing you are sure of is that you aren't sure of anything any more. And you look back at home and you see the mess that's been made while you've been away: everybody afraid of everybody else, afraid of saying something because they might offend some minority group and consequently no one has enough guts to stand up and say, by God, this is wrong

and let's fix it right, all the way right and not just some stupid half measure that will just cost money and make it that much worse.'

Liu fell silent and kicked at the snow for a minute. When he went on, it was in a quieter voice. 'You and I have both seen too much and done too much to ever rest easy again. I don't know where I'm going to go .