Her perspective had been poisoned, Reting knew. There were rumors upon rumors about Keyuri Lin.

Still, he and she had made their plans.

The Reting's visitors were tough, restless men, obsessed with the longings the Buddha taught should be escaped. But here they were in the Potala, which they'd been forbidden to approach. Where else might they reach? What if they could give Tibet real power in a dangerous world?

"Perhaps we can make a partnership," he said, watching the Germans.

The Westerners' eyes lit with ambition and greed. "The world's crisis is growing darker," Raeder said. "Time is of the essence. Do you have any trucks or cars that would speed part of the journey to the Kunlun?"

The regent smiled. "The British do. Ask them." Let the Europeans quarrel among themselves. He wasn't going to risk his own motorcar, shipped in pieces on animal backs and reassembled in Lhasa so he could drive on the palace parade ground. So he'd heed Keyuri and work with these interlopers to either retrieve rumored secrets or get rid of the Germans entirely. The woman had counseled that perhaps they could do both-this odd woman who studied things that were rightly the province of men.

The Germans shifted. "The English will not help us," Raeder said. "We fought a war with them a generation ago."

Reting shrugged. "We have a scholar, a most unusual nun of most unusual curiosity, who has studied the Shambhala legend more than any monk. Does your culture allow you to work with a woman as a guide?"

"Of course," Raeder said, not admitting that he agreed with the Nazis that a woman's best duty was raising children. "European nations have been ruled by queens as well as kings." The Germans glanced at each other. This seeming cooperation was more than they'd hoped, and they were both elated and wary.

Reting clapped his hands, once, and monks bowed and disappeared in the shadows. A short time later, they led a young woman into the reception area. Her head was cropped as short as a boot camp recruit in the fashion of both monks and nuns, but she was quite pretty, her features fine, her lashes long. She advanced with eyes low, a sheaf of papers and maps in her hand.

"Keyuri Lin will give you what guidance we can," the Reting said.

Raeder started. His companions looked at him curiously, but he had eyes only for this female scholar, his face suddenly pale. She lifted her head.

It was the woman Benjamin Hood had taken from him.

Each waited for the other to shout warning, but neither did.

17.

The air over western China.

September 9, 1938.

The Corsair biplane had two cockpits. Hood would sit in front of Beth Calloway as she piloted, in a basket about as comfortable as a barrel: a metal seat, hard ribs, and welded flange to hang on to behind a snarling engine. It was 1,400 miles to Lhasa, and each one was going to be bumpy, cold, and noisy.

"We'll fly close to the ground at first and put down if we spot any Japanese," she said. "Then we'll follow the Yangtze to Chongqing and break due west for Chengdu. After that, it's mountains, mountains, mountains."

"How high can this crate fly?" Its mustard yellow was spattered with mud from rough landings.

"More than eighteen thousand feet if we stay light. That's high enough to clear any passes. Beyond that, you have to hike."

"Just get me to Lhasa at twelve thousand. If I can reach the authorities fast enough, I can do what I'm supposed to do, I hope."

She looked him over: jaunty Filson bush hat that would blow off if he didn't put it away, oil cloth packer coat, a .45 automatic that would identify him as an American, a bandolier of rifle and shotgun shells like some Mexican bandit, and high-lace mountaineering boots shiny with waterproof wax. All he lacked was a merit badge. In the humid heat, he was sweating. She pointed skeptically. "What's that?"

He was shouldering his sling canvas duffel, fat as a sailor's and long enough to stuff a body. He swung it off for presentation. "My gear. Where does it go?"

"It doesn't. Not with us."

"I'm going to need this in Tibet."

Calloway swung open the door of a compartment behind her own seat. "You're not getting to Tibet unless we carry these." Three petrol canisters took up most of the space. "The Corsair's maximum range is less than seven hundred miles. We've got two refueling spots, but we'll have to put down and top off with these on the leg to Lhasa."

"Then we need a bigger plane."

"We don't have a bigger plane, unless you packed one in that duffel."

He frowned. "I miss the Clipper."

"I miss flying by myself. What's in there, anyway?"

Reluctantly, he handed her the bag, which bent her over with its weight. "You're kidding, right?" She dropped it on the hangar dirt and began pulling the contents out. "No, no, no." Shirts, underwear, trousers, and jackets were tossed to one side. So were extra boots, binoculars, compass, canteen, and sleeping bag.

"What are you doing?"

"Curbing weight and space. Here." She picked out a sweater and threw it to him. "It will get cold past Chengdu. The rest is too bulky. What's this?" She held up a bottle of single-malt scotch, Glenfiddich, which Sir Arthur had recommended.

"Replenishment."

"Weight." She tossed and it shattered.

"That's twenty-year-old scotch!" She was a madwoman.

"The monks don't need it and neither do we. And what's this?" She pulled out two guns by the stock, a .12-gauge shotgun and a Winchester Model 70 hunting rifle with scope. "Jesus Lord. Going hunting again?"

"In a manner of speaking. Those we do bring."

"No room, college boy."

"I've already been strafed on this trip."

"No room."

"You carry a pistol."

"And so do you. We've no room for long guns."

"They go in the cockpit with me. We'll leave you behind if we have to."

She put her hands on her hips. "You're going to fly this plane by yourself?"

He looked her up and down. "How hard can it be?"

The insult won a smirk, her first concession of respect. She nodded reluctantly. "You bring a Zero down with one of these and I'll be impressed. So let's do a trade for these guns. Something else has to go." She stepped up on the wing, reached into his cockpit, and hauled out a pack and harness. "This will give you more room, and incentive to aim true."

"What's that?"

"Your parachute. We'll leave it here."

"Great. What are you bringing?"

"The clothes I'm wearing, a box of tools, and chewing gum. And my parachute, since I travel light. You got money?"

"Chinese gold."

"Don't show it. Use a money belt. But you can buy robes and boots in Tibet for pennies on the dollar. Guns, too, I imagine."

"I like my own."

She gave him a leather flying hood, goggles, and white silk scarf. "Bugs and grit can hit like bullets when you fly. The scarf is to prevent chafing when you crane your neck. I want you looking for Japs the first hundred miles. When you get to the Potala Palace you can give it to the regent. Trading scarves is custom in Tibet; they call the scarf a khata. Now, be useful. You can turn the prop."

"We are in the Dark Ages."

"Don't do it until you get my signal. And step backward once it spins. I don't want hamburger all over my plane."

The engine roared to life, spitting a plume of black smoke. The propeller turned into a blur. He walked around the biplane wings to look at what the aviatrix was doing. Inside her cockpit was a stick, a pair of foot pedals, and a throttle. He would fly, if he had to.

"Here, use this!" she shouted over the roar of the engine. It was a jar of Vaseline she was smearing on her checks. "Fights windburn. Tibetan herders use red cream made from whey, but it stinks like hell and makes them look like demons."

He smeared his face, climbed up on the lower wing, and swung himself into his cockpit. Even with the parachute gone, it was a tight fit with his firearms. Their barrels pointed up, rattling with the vibration.

Beth pushed the silver throttle and the biplane shuddered and began to move. Then she used the rudder pedals to turn and soon they were bouncing down the dirt runway. The engine roared, climbing toward a whine, and they raced, skipping now. Then a pull of the joystick and they lumbered into the air, a posse of Chinese children running after them and waving.

Could have carried another fifty pounds, Hood thought sourly, but his spirits lifted with the plane. Maybe he could still catch Raeder. Houses turned to toys below. People became insects. He settled back for the ride. It was too noisy to talk.

The view was panoramic, the wind bracing, and the experience entirely different from the Clipper. He felt as farsighted as a bird. China became a green quilt buttoned with tile and thatch roofs. They skimmed just a few hundred feet above, peasants pausing to peer up at them. Behind, on the horizon, plumes of smoke rose from the Sino-Japanese front.

Hood did spot the wink of sun on a plane back toward the war, so as precaution he took up his rifle, opened the bolt, and slid in a shell. He turned half around, resting the barrel on the rim of the cockpit.

Calloway pushed it aside. "Idiot!" she shouted. "You'll take my head off before you hit something going three hundred miles an hour! I was joking about downing a Zero. Put it away!"

He saluted but rested the butt of his Winchester on the floor of his cockpit again, safety set, one hand on its stock. If a fighter came near him again, he was going down shooting.

The Yangtze was a broad silt road, third-longest river in the world. As they flew east the land grew hillier, China a hazed, rolling ocean. Everything from steamships to sampans crawled below, peasants stooping and oxen plodding in a tableau that hadn't changed in a thousand years. Then the land rose still more and they began flying through a succession of magnificent ravines, green mountains rising higher than their wings.

"The Wu Gorge!" Calloway shouted. Forested mountainsides reared like the skyscraper canyons of New York. The sediment-laden river twisted like an orange intestine. Villages clung to narrow shelves still in shadow.

Somewhere ahead was Raeder.

They spent their first night in Chongqing, Hood dazed and stiff from the long hours of engine noise, fumes, wind, and cramping. He paid the pittance it cost to buy them two rooms at a makeshift inn near the grass runway. It was dim inside-electricity hadn't reached this far-and smoky from the charcoal brazier. Calloway looked weary from the day's flight, and was about as flirtatious as Eleanor Roosevelt. She bolted her rice and vegetables like a dog. Hood tried to make conversation.

"You're a smart-mouth like my sister. I enjoy that."

She snorted. "Your sister."

"How'd you learn to fly?"

She looked at him tiredly. "Watched some barnstormers and saved up for flying lessons." Her reddened eyes wandered around the room, as if sociability was almost too much to endure.

That just made it interesting. "Shows initiative."

"It's called gumption in Nebraska."

"And you're a girl."

"Quite the observation, deadeye."

"It's unusual, that's all."

"We're half the population. And unusual isn't impossible. I wanted to do more than peel spuds and have babies."

He waited for her to ask more about him, but she didn't, so he plunged on. "It's a long way from Nebraska to the Chinese air force."

Beth looked at him directly this time, over the rim of her teacup. "You are educated. So, okay. I'm a tomboy, a runaway, and a mercenary. And the weather's better."

"Everywhere's better than Nebraska."

"And the money's good."

"Yes, your wealth is apparent."

She chewed. "You haven't seen my closet full of shoes."

He smiled at the joke. Progress.

"I also get to work for a woman."

"Madame Chiang?"

"Remarkable, isn't she?"

"Forceful. And so are you, Miss Calloway. You've flown me five hundred miles and haven't strayed off course once."

"How would you know? Besides, I was following the Yangtze."

"That shows wisdom right there."

"You don't need to flatter me, Mr. Hood. I'm not impressed by your museum, your money, your conversation, or your skill at killing helpless animals. I'm far too tired to want to sleep with you, and too well read to expect anything you say to be particularly enlightening. You're an assignment."

"You flatter me. I thought I was a mere chore." Yes, progress. She'd volunteered more than one sentence in a row.

"The leg to Chengdu is two hundred miles shorter, but you'll excuse me for going to bed. I'm guessing you'd rather have me alert tomorrow. And I'm sure you can fascinate yourself." She stood.