Tom Aston - The Machine

And just how many people was Ying Ning manipulating at this point?

The monks knew their way through the forest well enough at night. The route to the old mine workings was evidently well known. Panchen led on in determined silence, ready to do battle with the might of the Chinese State, but the gaggle of teenage monks following him resembled a Sunday afternoon picnic. Mercifully, they were carrying nothing more than a wooden stick or club each and a couple of ten litre drums of oil. Carslake, on whose credit card the radar set was still secured, sensibly lagged behind with the equipment. Stone walked with him, trying to enjoy the cold spring air and another night under the stunning Tibetan starscape. Shooting stars flitted thick and fast above the tree-line and the pale, white banner of the Milky Way was as clear as he’d ever seen it, clearer even than those nights in the high Pamirs. At least it felt that way.

It took an hour and a half for them to reach the end of the track. Which might have been a pleasant walk, without Carslake talking constantly.

‘I asked Ying Ning about this Lin Biao guy the monk was talking about, and the other one…’

‘Zhou Enlai,’ said Stone. ‘Zhou Enlai was Chairman Mao’s righthand man, his faithful deputy. One of the good guys.’

‘That’s what she said,’ said Carslake. ‘How did you know? Anyhow, Lin Biao is the guy who opened this mine up and started digging into what was going on here after all the monks were kicked out,’ said Carslake. ‘The thing is, not long after, Lin Biao had gone from nowhere to be the biggest man in China, taking over from Mao. Remind you of anyone?’

Carslake was speculating wildly here, but Stone let him talk.

‘Someone who came from obscurity to become the cleverest guy in his country? But Mao and his men had this Lin Biao dude figured, and got him rubbed out. So — when Semyonov turns up in China, the top guys know the score, and they rub him out too.’

‘For what it’s worth, Doug, no, I don’t see a similarity between Semyonov and a 1960’s Chinese politician,’ said Stone.

Ahead of then, the monks had finally halted, and were beckoning to them. The moon stood big and copper above the horizon as they reached the main highway up to the mine workings. It wasn’t looking too good. If the site had been left since the Seventies it would surely be overgrown by now.

By way of Panchen’s halting English and Stone’s poor Chinese, Panchen explained his plan again. A truck came up most nights at this time. They would hi-jack the truck at send it down the road to crash into the fence which apparently surrounded the whole site. Stone and Carslake could go through in the confusion, he said. There. Simple.

‘What about you?’ said Stone to Panchen.

‘I take guns from this truck. Send them to Lhasa for rebellion against Chinese,’ said Panchen.

‘Great,’ said Stone. At least Panchen had come clean finally. It really was a mad scheme. ‘That should mean a few more deaths for the Western newspapers to report on then.’

‘What say?’

‘Never mind.’ A good thing those bleeding hearts Stone knew back at the university weren’t here to witness this particular version of Tibetan Buddhism. Tibetans were regarded back home as uniform clones of the Dalai Lama — or Giyenchen for that matter. The truth was somewhat different.

Panchen stopped them on an asphalt road, a couple of hundred metres below a rise where the road entered the crater. They could see the glow of the moonlight fading up to the black velvet and the stars above. Before them was a wide patch of mud and stones where a stream crossed the road. The monks poured oil over the mud and water. Some kind of cunning trap for the truck when it appeared.

Stone was almost relieved. It really was a mad scheme. The truck would likely drive on through without noticing the monks at all. At which point they could all go home and no harm done. No guns, no riots in Lhasa.

Panchen tested the mud and oil with his foot. Incredibly, he was still wearing the sandals. Was it slippery? Stone tried it himself. Possibly, but surely it wouldn’t work.

Even Carslake was dubious. ‘Of all the dumb-assed things…’ He stood with Stone, the ridiculous bandana still round his head. Stone wondered if the more impressionable monks would be sporting bandanas before long.

Presently, the distant noise of a diesel engine was heard. An orgy 0f shhh noises, and finally silence. Panchen addressed the youngsters, his voice deliberately deep and masculine, before they all shrank back into the trees.

The truck engine was high-pitched, struggling up the hill in low gear, the differential whining through the corners. The monks were back in the trees, Stone and Carslake with them. Stone moved up to be near Panchen. In case he did anything really stupid. The truck struggled into view, over a rise, whereupon the driver threw it into neutral to coast down the hundred metres into the dip where the stream crossed. A standard practice. Chinese learn their road craft on bicycles and habitually freewheel downhill. The truck would roll over Panchen’s mud patch and engage the gears at the bottom, right on the patch of mud and oil. Panchen smiled. He shouted at a kid next to him, and gave the lad a kick forward. The novice ran into the headlights, robes flowing, just metres in front of the truck.

It worked. The driver stood on the brake, shouted a volley of abuse through the window, then stuck it into first gear, and the engine howled as the rear wheels spun satisfyingly in the oil and mud.

Panchen gripped his club. Bad things were about to happen. Stone found himself willing the tyres to grip again on the asphalt. Panchen took a couple of others and jogged up to the side of the truck. The driver wasn’t looking. A smash to the side window. Panchen grabbed the door, hauling the driver out. The engine had stalled. The driver’s mate made a lunge for the club of a monk at the other side, but Panchen went round there too. Dragged him through the broken glass of the window, lacerating his cheek and half pulling his ear off.

It was getting serious. Stone flew forward, but Panchen had swung his club twice at the man’s head. Stone was on Panchen, pulling him back, but the driver’s mate had gone down like a felled animal. Panchen bellowed in rage and smashed another completely pointless blow into the back of the man’s skull. Stone bent to the Chinese man, trying to cradle his head, but his fingers slipped into the bone at the back. Blood flowed into the mud, litres of it.

Jesus, what was he doing here? Stone stood back.

Carslake’s bandana appeared beside him. ‘I can see the fence from here, in the headlights. I’m going up there.’

‘Don’t do it, Carslake. After this they’ll shoot you.’

Stone was appalled that Panchen’s plan looked like it would work after all. The big Tibetan was up in the cab, ready to drive the truck away. The engine started up and screamed as Panchen struggled with the shift stick. Finally a crunching noise as Panchen found first gear, and there was another roar of the diesel motor as the monk stood on the accelerator. The rear wheels spun, drifting to the right. Panchen was shouting through the windows, but still had his foot jammed down. Stone was waving both arms at him. Panchen had evidently never driven before.

Stone looked round for Carslake. It was dark save for the headlights of the truck on the road, but he saw the bandana slipping away, back into the trees with the radar set. Arsehole.

Then from behind the truck, the familiar, savage banging of an AK47. Chinese-made, of course, like the ones in Afghanistan. Its jagged muzzle flash lit the little scene like a strobe light, with freeze-frame images of the monks shifting into the trees or airborne, throwing themselves to the ground. Stone lay behind the canvas of the truck, holding a large stick. Shout, fire, shout, fire. The weapon hammered and reverberated, alternating with silence. Bark splintered away from the trees.