The Russians were intent on finding Sokolov. Why end the mission before it started?

She heard footsteps cracking across the dry earth behind them and turned to see Viktor, dressed in a green flight suit, walking their way.

Malone rushed past her and planted a fist in Viktor's face.

FORTY-NINE.

Malone was ready when Viktor sprang to his feet. He sidestepped the first lunge and landed another punch in Viktor's gut, which he immediately noted was hard as steel.

"You sold us out," he said. "Again."

Viktor lowered his fists. "Malone, are you that stupid? Karl Tang doesn't give a d.a.m.n about you. It's him he wants dead." Viktor pointed at Pau. "All I did was step in and save your a.s.s-which, I might add, may cost me mine."

"And you expect us to believe that?" Malone asked.

"Tang wants you dead," Viktor said to Pau. "In order to save them, I had to save you."

Pau faced Malone. "We need to head north. Tang has a long reach in this country."

"I can take you wherever you need to go," Viktor said.

"And why would we trust you?" Ca.s.siopeia asked.

"I just blew a pilot out of the sky. That doesn't show you whose side I'm on?"

Malone caught the change of tone. Softer. Calmer. Rea.s.suring. A voice seemingly just for her. But he wanted to know, "Karl Tang is going to let us roam free around China in a PLA helicopter? We can just do as we please?"

"If we hurry, we can be gone before he has time to react. My orders were to make sure the fighter strafed the lake with its cannons so no one swam to sh.o.r.e. I changed those. It'll take them a little while to regroup. One thing I've learned is that, unlike you or me, the Chinese are not improvisers. This was not an officially sanctioned action, so some local commander somewhere is right now trying to figure out what to do."

Malone ran a hand through his wet hair and tried to a.s.sess their options.

There weren't many.

He stared out on the lake and noticed that none of the junks approached either the debris in the water or the sh.o.r.e where they stood.

He turned and was about to ask Viktor another question when a fist slammed into his jaw. The blow stunned him, sent him to the ground, the bright midday blacking in and out.

"Don't. Hit. Me. Again," Viktor said, standing over him.

He contemplated retaliating, but opted not to. He was still gauging this foe, undecided, except that Viktor had just saved their lives and he apparently liked Ca.s.siopeia. Both of which bothered him.

"Are you two through?" Ca.s.siopeia asked.

"I am," Malone said, standing, his gaze locked on Viktor.

"I'm not the enemy," Viktor said.

He rubbed his jaw. "Since we have little choice, we're just going to have to take your word on that. Fly us north."

"Where?"

"Xi'an," Pau said. "To the tomb of Qin Shi."

Ni strained to hear the premier's soft voice through the phone.

"The time just before and after Mao died was chaotic. Politics shifted back and forth between Maoism and something utterly different. What that new direction was to be, no one knew. Mao himself tried to balance these conflicting views, but he was too old and weak to keep them in check."

Though young, Ni remembered the early 1970s, and knew that the Gang of Four, radical Maoists led by Mao's wife, had favored tactics such as cla.s.s struggle, anti-intellectualism, egalitarianism, and xenophobia. Their opposition advocated economic growth, stability, education, and pragmatism.

"The balance tipped back and forth in the two years before Mao died. There were internal struggles, private battles, public purges, even some deaths. Eventually, Deng Xiaoping claimed power. But the struggle to arrive at that point was long and bitter. The scars ran deep. Pau Wen and I were there during every battle."

"On whose side?"

"That matters not. But the mistakes made then still haunt us. This is why the battle for control, between you and Tang, cannot be a public spectacle. I will not allow the same mistake to be made again."

The premier sounded like a Confucian.

"Deng Xiaoping was, in many ways, worse than Mao," the premier said. "To him, any reform was acceptable so long as it did not call the Party, the government, or Marxism into question. Improve the standard of living, regardless of the method-that was his philosophy, and look what happened. He allowed us to destroy our country."

He could not argue with that conclusion. The scars from unregulated and unrestrained development loomed everywhere. Nowhere had the nation been spared.

"We seem doomed," the premier said. "Once we were an isolated land, then the Portuguese came. Two hundred years later we were overrun with our own corruption. Western troops and gunboats controlled our ports, as we were but a colony of the Western powers. That atmosphere of defeat was perfect for the rise of a Mao, someone who told the people exactly what they wanted to hear. But communism has proved far worse than anything that came before. Mao isolated us again. Deng tried to change that, but went too fast, too far. We were not ready. That's when Pau Wen decided to act. He saw an opportunity and dispatched every brother of the Ba into the government or the military, charging them with but one duty-rise in stature and power. No one knew who would make the highest rise first, but Karl Tang has now emerged as that person."

"And he has others, not of the Ba, who will follow him."

"Many others. His arguments are persuasive, as were those of Mao and Deng. Many on the Central Committee, and in the National a.s.sembly, will gladly support Tang in his Legalism."

His own advisers had warned of the same probability.

"History is a maiden, and you can dress her however you wish," the premier said. "Within ten years of Mao's death our government had been completely transformed, reorganized, thousands of new officials appointed, the past utterly eradicated. Pau Wen learned from that chaos. With careful skill, for the past three decades, he has directed the brothers of the Ba, including Karl Tang, on a singular course. I know that he left the country so he could more easily manage that plan."

Ni recalled the recorded phone conversation and told the premier, then said, "Clearly, Tang and Pau have parted ways."

"Careful, Minister. Eunuchs cannot be trusted."

His nerves were frayed to the breaking point. He waited for the premier to offer more, but there was only silence. Finally, the old man said, "Minister, I've just been told that a helicopter left Lake Dian with four people aboard. Three of them, Pau Wen included, swam from the lake."

"Intercept it."

"What would we learn from that?"

He knew the answer. Nothing.

"Thankfully," the premier said, "I believe I know where that helicopter is going."

He listened.

"Xi'an. You should head there immediately. But first, there is something else you must be told. Something not even Pau Wen knows to exist."

Tang waited at the airfield outside Lanzhou. The terminal, a gray cement cubicle, with red velvet curtains adorning tall windows, cast the charm of an abandoned building. He could not leave until he knew exactly what had happened on Lake Dian. If everything went according to plan, Viktor Tomas would have all three pa.s.sengers on board his helicopter. If that were so, Viktor would not make an oral report. Instead a code had been devised whereby a message could be sent without arousing suspicion.

He had placed much trust in this foreigner, but so far Viktor had performed admirably. He'd listened yesterday as past exploits with Cotton Malone and Ca.s.siopeia Vitt had been explained, appreciating how that insight could be used to their advantage. He'd agreed with Viktor's a.s.sessment that to re-ingratiate himself with Malone and Vitt, to know precisely what the Russians and the Americans were after, something telling would have to occur.

Which was why he'd approved the downing of the fighter.

Now he could learn exactly what his enemies intended.

Once he a.s.sumed the premiership, in total command of the Party and the nation, enjoying the absolute backing of the Central Committee and the military, he would never be in doubt.

Until that happened, he was vulnerable.

So anything that minimized his risks was appreciated.

His phone alerted him to an incoming text message from his staff. He studied the screen. WEATHER ACCESSED FOR LINTONG COUNTY.

By monitoring the helicopter's data stream, it was possible to know what digital information was both sent and received from the onboard electronics. Viktor had said that if he failed to radio in, but instead requested weather conditions for a particular locale, then that was where they were headed.

Lintong lay in Shaanxi province, just east of Xi'an.

Where the tomb of Qin Shi and the terra-cotta army rested.

He answered the text to his staff with a concise order.

MAKE SURE THEIR PATH IS CLEAR. NO INTERFERENCE.

FIFTY.

1:00 PM.

Malone sat in the helicopter's pa.s.senger compartment with Ca.s.siopeia and Pau Wen, while Viktor flew alone in the c.o.c.kpit. His clothes were wet from his dip in Lake Dian, but they were drying. They were flying northeast, a thousand kilometers across the heart of China, toward Shaanxi province and Xi'an. He remained skeptical as h.e.l.l about trusting Viktor, so he motioned at Ca.s.siopeia and Pau to remove their headsets.

He nestled close to them and said, "I want to have a talk without him listening." He kept his voice just below the din of the rotors.

"We're making progress, Cotton," Ca.s.siopeia said, and he caught her irritation.

"I realize your goal is to find Sokolov's boy. But does either of you think all this is happening with no one knowing?"

"It clearly is not," Pau said. "But we are getting where we need to go. Once there, we can change the situation."

"And fighting with Viktor," Ca.s.siopeia said, "is not going to make things easier."

"You've got a soft spot for him, don't you?"

"I have a soft spot for Lev Sokolov's son. I want to find that boy. To do that I need a sample of ancient oil to give Tang. To get that, we have to be in Xi'an."

"You don't really think that deal is still good, do you? Sokolov's apparently in deep trouble."

Her frustration was evident and he hated pressing, but it had to be said.

"Tang could already have Sokolov," he said. "He may have no use for you any longer."

"Then why are we still alive?" she asked.

He pointed at Pau. "Apparently, he's what interests Tang now. Viktor made that abundantly clear."

And there was what Ivan had not said. About Sokolov. The Russians wanted him back but, if left with no choice, dead was not out of the question.

He faced Pau. "What are we going to do once we're on the ground?"

"We will enter the tomb of Qin Shi, just as I once did. But we'll need flashlights."

He found an equipment bay where two lay and retrieved them.

"The tomb was not finished at the time of Qin's death," Pau said. "His son, the Second Emperor, completed it and buried his father. He then tricked the designers, and some of the builders, into going inside, trapping them underground. They died with their emperor."

"How do you know that?" Malone asked.

"I've seen their bones. They were there when I entered the tomb."

"But you're saying there was another way in and out," Ca.s.siopeia said.

Pau explained that groundwater had been a challenge for the builders, as their excavations had been deep enough to tap the water table. So an elaborate underground drainage system had been created. Long channels bore through the earth, as much as 800 meters long, which prevented water from penetrating the chambers during construction. Once completed, most of the tunnels were refilled with tamped earth to form a dam.

A few, though, had been left open.

"I stumbled across one when I found Qin Shi's library. It bypa.s.ses all the traps that the builders set for robbers. Which was probably its purpose. They would have required a way to get inside to inspect the integrity, from time to time, without exposing themselves to danger."

"Why didn't they use it to get out once they were trapped inside?" Ca.s.siopeia asked.

"The answer to that question will be obvious once you see the entrance."

"What about the mercury?" Malone asked, recalling their conversation yesterday at Pau's residence.