The Chinese Agenda (21 page)

Ten minutes later, a radio message had been sent to Ala Kul canceling the pickup and they moved out to begin the long trek to the alternate rendezvous point. Gillon kept them all moving until nearly midnight. The snow had thickened to the point where even if it had been full daylight, they would have been little better off. The only thing in their favor was the fact that they were above ten thousand feet and the trees were sparse enough not to constitute a major hazard. All five men moved forward on snowshoes bent under the weight of the packs and their own exhaustion. One foot was thrust forward after another until finally legs rebelled and buckled, refusing to go further. Leycock was the first to give out. He sank down into the snow and hollered for the rest of them to stop. Gillon judged that they had come nearly eight miles if his navigation by compass and map was correct. He shuffled back to where Stowe was waiting and doublechecked his calculations against those Stowe had been making independently. Both sets differed by less than a mile and Stowe studied Gillon for a moment with what could almost have been respect.

`Surprised?' Gillon could not resist asking.

Stowe grunted and turned away. 'Let's go see what the hell's the matter with Leycock.'

Grinning, Gillon nodded and followed him back to

where Leycock was sprawled in the snow, leaning against his pack and massaging his legs.

'Damned muscle cramp, I guess . . . sorry, but I can't go any farther tonight.'

Gillon flashed his light around, but the steadily falling snow muffled everything beyond a few paces.

'All right. We might as well stop here as anywhere else. We've covered ten miles. We can do the rest easily -enough by noon ...'

He broke off as Leycock began to cough hoarsely and knelt down to shine his flashlight into his face. Except for the drawn, gray skin and bloodless lips suggesting exhaustion, Leycock seemed to be all right. His own legs were quaking to such an extent that he doubted that he could go any further himself.

The others agreed in relief and went quickly about rigging their tents. Gillon helped Leycock and then made sure that he crawled inside his sleeping bag before he left him to set up his own. Then, before he could abandon himself to the sleep he desperately needed, he forced himself to make the rounds of the other four tents to make sure that each man had properly rigged his tent and was inside his sleeping bag, where he would not freeze to death. Guards, he considered, were an unnecessary precaution this night. There was absolutely no chance that anyone could have followed them in this heavy snow. Satisfied that he had done all he could, he crawled into his own tent. The persistent buzzing of his watch woke him to a dawn equally as dark as the night and full of slanting, wind-whipped snow. The winds had gathered on the mountains during the night and were now raging down on the forest like an evil presence. Gillon went around to each tent, coaxing its occupant from an exhausted sleep, until they were all awake.

They ate a meager hot breakfast and shortly after 0600, were on the way again, the sky and the forest around them beginning to take on form and substance as the sky lightened. All morning they pushed on and Gillon was troubled by a vague urging that something was wrong. It certainly, he thought bitterly, could not be said that their luck had changed unless it was to worsen. He wondered if their chances of leaving the Tien Shan were not approaching zero; if the Red Chinese did not get them, the weather would. Then one of those atmospheric surprises common to the Tien Shan, common in fact to all temperate mountain areas where frictional heating often occurs as the winds surge through the high passes, happened. The wind, which had been steadily rising since dawn, threatening to turn into a major blizzard, dropped away to nothing. One minute it was whipping snow off the surface, the next, it had become only the faintest whisper of a vagrant breeze that now and then eddied the snow without disturbing its almost vertical fall. Within an hour, even the snow had diminished to flurries. Ever since they had begun the trek to the alternate rendezvous, they had been climbing steadily; now the tall dense stands of timber had been left behind and Gillon realized that under the snow cover lay alpine meadow. The cloud cover remained thick and gray, cutting off the mountain peaks, and the long, upward slopes sweeping ahead of them had taken on the same funereal color, so that it was impossible to tell where snow ended and cloud began.

They struggled up the last ridge shortly before noon to see the terrain falling away to what appeared to be the mouth of a canyon still two miles distant and nearly a thousand feet below. It had begun to snow again, a mild snowfall that floated down gently. Clusters of stunted, wind-twisted trees marred the otherwise virgin snowscape on the slope. To the east, a line of dense black scrub pine furred the lower, far side of the valley and grew in strength until they overlapped the ridge. According to the map, that ridge then gave onto a series of valleys stepping successively down to six thousand feet to divide the slopes of the Tien Shan from the western foothills of the Khalik Tau range that stretched away east to Mongolia, separating the Dzungarian Plain from the Taklamakan Desert.

Gillon took the binoculars out of his pack and began to study the ground between the slope and the canyon.

Even at midday, the light was dimmed by the threatening clouds and the foreshortened circle of white was lacking in detail, so that it was difficult to tell if what he was seeing through the lenses actually existed or was a product of his vertiginous mind. After a few moments, he lowered the glasses and whistled softly.

'Damn, you can make yourself sick doing that,' he muttered. A glance at his watch showed less than thirty minutes remaining till noon. He calculated that they could reach the canyon in fifteen to twenty minutes on skis and he decided that a quick lunch was in order. They broke out cold rations and ate what they could of the half-frozen, tasteless paste and washed it down with water that was barely above freezing.

Òkay, gentlemen.' Gillon grinned at them. 'Into the

jaws of death ... etc.' 'Tennyson may be. appropriate? Leycock grinned, 'but you could have picked something a little more cheerful.'

Gillon snorted and led them off down the slope. Now that the wind had diminished and the snow had stopped Gillon was certain that he could detect a drop in temperature. He half suspected that they were in for their coldest night so far if the pickup aircraft didn't get in. They were beginning to feel and show the effects of high-altitude exertion; dehydration, lack of energy, slowness of thought coupled with less than adequate sleep. The toll taken on their bodies had been fantastic. If the temperature dropped much lower, Gillon seriously doubted their ability to survive.

But at the moment, there was the mild challenge of an easy downhill slope, a fresh powder beneath their skis and the prospect that they would be out of the Tien Shan by tonight.

The snow whispered the way snow does only when it is fresh and the air is crackling cold. Gillon led off in long, exhilarating sweeps that took them easily but swiftly down the slope to the valley floor. As he came down the last bit of the slope he leaned sharply into the turn and thrust strongly for the canyon gaping open before him. As with the main rendezvous of the day before, this one was also set in a canyon. Seen at its wide northern end, it appeared to wander for several miles. Gillon looked around him as he pushed for the canyon; peaks seen indistinctly through the snow towered around them, lining the sky on three sides with jagged teeth. He guessed they were no more than a mile or two distant and probably climbed to yet another three to four thousand feet. The valley was really a Y; leading down from the north from the head of a large glacial field, it had probably once been a spur of an immense glacier. One branch of the valley ran east and the other north by northwest. The meeting place was located just inside the eastern branch and if the map was correct they had less than a mile now to go. There were none of the large twenty-thousand-foot peaks visible to the southwest, although if he remembered the map correctly, some twenty miles away was the main spine of the Tien Shan. Between this valley and the main section of the range, lay a series of deep river valleys.

As they closed in on the canyon, Gillon became aware of an unaccountable tension beginning. He wasn't sure yet but it appeared that the canyon closed at the far end. The map had not suggested that it was a box canyon . . . which did not surprise him, as the maps were lacking in dependable detail and this region had not been seriously explored since 1903. Still, he did not like the idea of skiing into a box canyon in spite of the fact that it was impossible for Chinese troops to have tracked them during the snowstorm. Even if they were equipped with the latest in personnel detection devices, infrared, ultraviolet and chemical detectors, all would have been useless in the bad weather. Still, he was uneasy and he brought the group to a stop. 'This is a box canyon,' he announced flatly.

Dmietriev pushed ahead a few paces and used his binoculars to examine the walls and the portion of the canyon floor visible to them. Leycock and Stowe leaned on their ski poles, watching curiously, and Rodek unslung his carbine from his back and reversed it across his shoulders so that it lay against his chest, ready for instant use. Dmietriev fell back. 'You are right. It is a closed canyon.' He paused a moment to stare around, then muttered half to himself, 'I don't like the feel of it.'

Gillon rubbed his forehead. 'I can't imagine Liu ever selecting a place like this but that's what Jones's map showed.'

'Well, hell, man, if that's what the map showed, then this must be the place. The Agency doesn't make mistakes.' Stowe's voice was mocking, but it held some of the same apprenhension that Gillon felt and he let it pass.

'Not much chance that they could have followed us last night . . . or today either,'

Leycock observed halfheartedly.

Gillon studied the sparsely wooded ridge to the east with his glasses. It was heavily forested near the crest, enough to provide sufficient cover . . . He pointed in that direction.

'As long as we are still out of sight from inside the canyon, let's go up that ridge. We can take a good look at what .. or who .. . is down there before we decide to go in.'

Stowe started to object, 'For God's . . .' His hand was upraised and his mouth open but he never completed the sentence. Rodek lurched, and pushed him down. An instant later, Gillon heard the distant, flat crack of a rifle. Rodek half turned, clawed feebly at his chest,

gasped and collapsed like an empty hag, one leg beneath him and his arms thrown out at odd angles. For an instant, they remained frozen in shock, then Gillon shouted and without thinking shoved off toward the canyon. He thrust desperately into the snow with the ski poles and ran for the canyon's mouth and its insignificant safety. He risked a quick glance over his shoulder and saw Stowe struggling to his feet and far behind him two long lines of white-clad ski troopers slicing down the same slope they had just negotiated. Tiny plumes of smoke showed for a second but skis are not the steadiest platform for accurate shooting at long range and he never saw where the bullets went. Rodek's body lay huddled in the snow where he had fallen. Stowe shoved him half over, hesitated a moment, then was skiing

after them. With a sickening feeling, Gillon knew that Rodek was dead. He concentrated on his skiing now, thrusting steadily with the poles to increase his speed to the maximum possible down the slight grade. They had half a mile to go and already the Chinese, fresher and stronger, had gained considerably on them. The sound of rifle shots was becoming more frequent, an indication that the distance was closing. Gillon risked another look behind and estimated that there were close to thirty troopers behind, divided into two groups; the group to their south was the closest and stood an excellent chance of cutting them off before they reached the illusory safety of the canyon. If they reached the canyon, they might put up a good defense for a while in the trees that he could now see clustered along the bottom but ultimately, when their ammunition gave out, the Chinese troopers would hit them from above as well as from ahead. There was nothing, he knew, to stop the soldiers from climbing that same ridge that Gillon had-considered, crossing along the top of the canyon and swooping down on them from above.

.. Nor, for that matter, was there anything to prevent them from doing the same thing. He tried to recall what lay on the far side. As best he could remember, the ridge gave over to a river valley that was unnamed on , the map. He recalled that it fell away gradually for nearly two thousand feet to the east. The sides of the valley were sure to be thickly covered with the usual spruce and pine and perhaps if they could make the top of the ridge, they stood a chance after all. Gillon was only sure of one thing at this point and that was that he did not, under any circumstances, wish to be caught inside that canyon! Abruptly, he made up his mind and shot off to his left, yelling for the others to follow. He risked one fast glance behind as he completed the turn and saw that they had all managed to keep, up with him. Dmietriev, Leycock and Stowe may not have known what he was up to, but it would not take them long to figure it out. In the same glance, he had also seen that the Chinese had been taken by surprise and had not yet started the turn. They had gained a few seconds by surprise and those few seconds had opened a wide amount of distance between the hunted and the hunters. They were, in effect, bisecting an angle between the two flanking groups of Chinese with a line that did take them closer to the northern group, but as they were further behind to start, it made no difference.

The snow had begun to swirl faster and Gillon knew that the wind was increasing in spurts and gusts. Each time that it did so, it mixed newly fallen snow with that swept off the surface into a meager ground blizzard. It would not slow either group, Gillon knew, but it would cause the Chinese to save their ammunition.

A few minutes more and the race would really become critical, he realized. They would be starting to climb the ridge while the Chinese came on at full speed. By the time they had gone more than a few hundred feet the Chinese would be close enough for accurate firing. He fought down the fear that realization inspired and when he felt the slope beneath his skis begin to slant up, swung to a stop.