Clive Cussler - The Kingdom

“Those are tubs,” Remi said.

“They look like graves.”

She knelt beside one and tapped the inside walls with her machete. She got back the familiar clang of steel on stone.

“Some more over here,” Sam said, crossing to the other side.

They found a semicircle of stone benches enclosing a round basin wider than Sam was tall. Remi repeated her routine but could not touch the bottom. Sam found a chunk of stone that had fallen off a nearby bench and dropped it into the basin.

They heard a muffled thump.

“About ten feet deep,” Sam said.

He crouched and shone his light down the shaft but could see nothing through the web of vines and roots. “Hello!” he called. There was no echo.

“Too much vegetation,” Remi guessed.

Sam found another rock and prepared to drop it.

“What are you doing?”

“Indulging my curiosity. We didn’t see any sign of this shaft on the floor below, which means it was behind a wall. It has to have a purpose.”

“Go ahead.”

Sam leaned over the shaft, angled his arm, then hurled the stone. Unseen, it thumped against the bottom, then again, then clattered against a hard surface.

Remi said. “Good call. It’s got to lead somewhere. Do you want to-”

Sam’s radio crackled to life. In between bursts of static, faint staccato voices came through the speaker. The snippets were hurried and overlapping.

“I think it’s Gupta and Ajay,” Remi said.

Sam pressed the Talk button. “Ajay, can you hear me? Ajay, come in!”

Static. Then Jack’s voice: “Sam . . . Gupta . . . has spotted a . . . is taking off.”

“He’s leaving,” Remi said.

They turned and ran down the stairs, Remi trailing with her slight limp. They crossed the den and headed down the tunnel.

Remi called, “What do you think he spotted?”

“Only one thing I can think of that would panic him,” Sam replied over his shoulder: “Helicopter.”

“I was afraid of that.”

An oval of light appeared ahead. Sam and Remi skidded to a stop before reaching it and crouch-walked the last few steps. In the clearing, the Chetak’s rotors were spinning rapidly; through the side window they could see Gupta furiously punching buttons and checking gauges. He grabbed the radio handset and started talking.

His voice burst through Sam’s radio: “Sorry, I will try to return. Try to hide. They may go away.”

Gupta then lifted the collective, and the Chetak lifted straight up. At thirty feet, it banked, nose down, and zoomed from view.

Out of the corner of their eyes Sam and Remi saw Karna and Ajay step from a tunnel entrance. Sam waved, caught their attention, then gestured at them to retreat. They slipped back out of sight.

Preceded by only a few seconds of thudding rotors, an olive green helicopter rose into view at the far edge of the plateau. Sam and Remi immediately recognized the nose cone and rocket pods: a Chinese PLA Harbin Z-9.

“Hello, old enemy,” Remi muttered.

She and Sam backed up a few more feet.

The Z-9 continued to rise, then pivoted, revealing another fond memory: an open door and a soldier crouched over a mounted machine gun. The Z-9 slid sideways over the clearing and touched down.

“Let’s go, Sam,” Remi said. “We need to hide.”

“Just wait.”

A figure appeared in the doorway.

“Oh, no,” Remi muttered.

They both recognized the lithe, willowy body shape.

Zhilan Hsu.

She stepped down from the doorway. Dangling from her right hand was a compact submachine gun. A moment later two more figures stepped from the doorway to join her. Russell and Marjorie King, also armed with compact submachine guns.

“Behold, the Wonder Twins,” Sam said.

Zhilan turned, said something to them, then stepped to the Z-9’s side door, which opened to reveal a mid-forties Chinese man. Sam withdrew a pair of binoculars from his pack and zoomed in on the pair.

“I think we’ve found King’s Chinese contact,” Sam said. “He’s definitely PLA. Very high ranking, either a colonel or general.”

“Do you see any more soldiers inside?”

“No, just the door gunner. Between him, Zhilan, and the twins, that’s all they need. I don’t know why they haven’t shut down the engine yet, though.”

“How in God’s name did they find us?”

“No idea. Too late to worry about it now.”

The PLA officer and Zhilan shook hands, then he closed the door. The Z-9’s engine rose in pitch, and then the helicopter lifted off. It pivoted so its tail was facing the plateau, then headed off.

“Our odds just improved,” Sam said.

“What’s Zhilan doing?”

Sam focused his binoculars on Zhilan in time to see her pull a cell phone from her jacket pocket. She punched a series of numbers into the keypad, and then she and the twins turned and watched the helicopter recede into the distance.

In a mushroom of orange and red, the Z-9 exploded. Chunks of flaming debris plummeted toward earth and then out of sight.

Sam and Remi couldn’t speak for several seconds. Finally Remi said, “That ruthless-”

“King is tying up loose ends,” Sam said. “He’s probably already shut down his black market fossil operation: the dig site, his transportation system-and now his contact in the government.”

“We’re the last loose ends,” Remi said. “Can we shoot them from here?”

“No chance. Our snub-noses aren’t worth a damn beyond twenty feet or so.”

In the clearing, Zhilan had traded her cell phone for a portable radio. She brought it up to her lips.

Over Sam’s radio they heard, “Do you have him?”

“I have him.” Ajay’s voice.

“Bring him out.”

Sam and Remi looked right. Jack Karna stepped from the tunnel entrance, followed by Ajay. The barrel of his gun was pressed against the base of Karna’s skull. The other hand clutched the collar of his jacket.

Prodded by Ajay, the pair walked halfway to the clearing, then stopped. They were forty feet to Sam and Remi’s right.

“Why, Ajay?” Karna asked.

“I am sorry, Mr. Karna. Truly I am.”

“But why?” Karna repeated. “We’re friends. We’ve known each other for-”

“They came to me in Kathmandu. It’s more money than I would make in ten lifetimes. I can send my children to university, my wife and I can buy a new home. I am sorry. But she gave me her word. None of you will be harmed.”

Karna replied, “She lied to you.” Then louder to Zhilan: “Your spawn I’ve already met a few months ago in Lo Monthang. But I don’t think we’ve been properly introduced.”

Zhilan said, “My name is-”

“The Dragon Lady, I know. You’re too late, you realize. This is not the place. The Theurang is not here.”

“You’re lying. Ajay, what do you say?”

“We only started searching, ma’am. Mr. Karna and the Fargos seem sure this is the location of Shangri-La.”

Zhilan said, “Speaking of the Fargos . . . Come out, both of you! Your helicopter is gone! Come out now, help me find the Golden Man and I’ll signal for our transportation. I will land you safely back in Yingkiong. You have my promise.”

“You forget, Dragon Lady, Sam and Remi know you,” Karna said. “Your promise is worthless.”

“You are likely correct,” Zhilan replied. “Mr. and Mrs. Fargo! Come out now or I will kill your friend!”

Remi whispered, “Sam, we’ve got to help him.”

“That’s what she wants,” he replied.

“We can’t just let her-”

“I know, Remi.”

Karna called, “Dragon Lady, they can’t hear you. All this behind me is a temple-a complex so big, it will take months to search. Right now, they probably don’t even know you’re here.”