by Rob Wood
The last man was familiar to Lily: a young Uighur who worked at the lab. She had seen him, but could not call a name to mind. She nodded at him politely.
Noting this, Raj began, “Lily, you remember Turkhunjun, of course. He has been with us at the lab since he was 13. I have been struggling to teach him some rudimentary engineering. Fortunately, he is patient—and a very apt pupil.”
The young man stepped forward and extended his hand to Lily. He seemed like he was about 17 years old. “Call me, ‘Turk.’” He said, with a young man’s gift for bravado.
“You are Uighur?” Lily asked. “From Yining, perhaps?”
“Yes,” he answered, a pleased smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.”
“Turkhunjun has been trained in the use of rebreathers. He is our resident expert in confined entry work. When a closed vessel requires welding, inspection, or care of any kind . . . he is our man.
“The next is Che. He is one of the Yi people from Guangxi.”
The thin, older man did not rise. He simply inclined his head toward Lily.
“I met Che when we were filming ‘Five Hundred Steps” in Yangshuo. He has, since boyhood, dived the underwater karst caves there. He may have spent more time in water than on land—which is why he is so well preserved!” Raj chuckled.
“I have saved the best for last,” he said. “Since I cannot accompany you myself, I have come up with the next best thing—maybe even a better thing.”
The note of pride in Raj’s voice was unmistakable. “Meet my older half-brother—but brother nonetheless, in heart and soul. He is Daksha. In Sanskrit, his name means, ‘the skilled one.’ I have looked up to this man my entire life.”
“Dak—at your service!” The man’s hand was a blur of speed as he snapped off a salute.
“Dak is a Gurkha from Nepal. He is here on loan from…. Well, he has served in a number of military special operations forces. The Communist Party of Nepal has stated that mercenary service is degrading to the Nepalese people. Dak has never agreed. And, in any event, he is not a communist.”
The following days presented hours of hard work, and they were hours spent as a team. They learned to communicate, relying on the Chinese common language where they could, sign language where words failed them. Each member knew the details of the assignment intimately. The team rationale was two-fold: Help and support one another, of course; but, if any member was injured or killed, the others would automatically cover . . . down to the last man. There was to be no turning back.
They practiced with each piece of equipment separately and in ensemble. Not that they were encumbered with many tools at all. Snaps, belly bags, trailing tool kit: all were forbidden. They represented the risk of a snag in the tight and turbulent world of the karez.
Using the rebreathers was altogether new to Lily and to Che. They practiced in a vast stainless-steel tank, formerly used for fermenting an alcohol base from soybean mash. This was their own silver cove. They dove, swam, turned tight corners, hovered at depth, and, of course, learned to know intimately the feel and behavior of the packs that could save their lives or snuff them out. They removed and replaced masks, rebreathers, even fins under water, until their fingers had memorized every surface.
Dak’s experience was tremendously useful, and he proved to be a good teacher. Even so, Raj was never far away, always watching, prompting, and worrying. Then the day came when he had to join the Uighur team in the desert and prepare for receipt of the drugs.
The goodbyes were brief.
“I’ll see you all topside,” he said. “All of you.”
59
TAKLAMAKAN DESERT
Monday the 17th dawned cool and crisp on the edge of the desert. There was a wind from the west that lifted the Taklamakan sand into billows of beige that obscured the horizon. Were it not for the flurry of sand, Raj would have seen them earlier.
“There are a lot of them,” said the Uighur next to him. “Three vans full.”
“Our man must have insecurity issues,“ Raj sniped.
“Where would he pick up so many men without attracting attention?” asked the Uighur.
“Some of them have Sinopec logos,” said Raj. “My guess is that they are—or were—working security for the oil exploration out here. They’re gathering around the karez. And they have a winch.”
Raj thought for a long time. “Local contacts . . . and a knowledge of the karez…” Raj muttered to himself. “I wonder if we’re dealing with competition from within Xinjiang itself?”
“Armed competition. They have guns,” said the Uighur next to him.
Raj frowned. “I’m getting the uncomfortable feeling that our supplier thinks he’s going to eliminate the middle man. Namely us.” He stared hard at the tableau of figures shimmering in the heat and dust of the desert. “Well, we’ll soon find out what they have in mind.”
Five minutes later, he whispered under his breath, “Cue the ominous music. Here they come.”
Lily, Dak, Turk, Che and their support team were already at the second well, 10 kilometers upstream of the cave, when word came from Raj, radioing out of Rover I.
“There’s activity at the well here,” he said. “I’ve got binocs on them. From the cave mouth I can see everything. They dropped a net.” Raj took a deep breath, “Put your ducks in the water and head on down.”
Dak and Turk pulled a grain hopper over to well 2 and pulled the release, sending plastic wrapped packets the size of bread loaves spilling down the wellbore.
Two Uighurs on the support team pulled the hopper back, and Dak and Turk unfolded a metal tripod and winch. The chains on the legs clanked as each of the three poles was fully extended and staked down.
“Time to go,” Lily said, hooking the winch to her waist. “We’re essentially racing our own fake shipment down the karez. They’re waiting on those drugs, and I don’t expect them to hang around for us. Be sure to capture the good stuff, when it comes down the karez. Should be here any moment. We’ll want to sell it.”
“Roger that!” Dak winked at her. “Three hours to go. I’ll be right behind you, and we’ll be there in time for a noon lunch.”
Lily went first. She swung out over the opening and looked down the gullet of the well. It was lined with ochre colored block as far down as the sun reached. Beyond that, she could see nothing. However, she could feel a cold breath rising from the depths, and she thought she heard water moaning in the shadows. She shivered.
“Fire in hole,” Lily said to herself, and released the catch on the winch. The metal line screamed and she dropped straight down. Until she came to a jarring stop. It was so sudden, her knees wobbled under her to take the shock, angling her body so that her head bounced off the wall of the well.
“Aargh!” she grunted. “What the…?”
“Lily! What’s the matter?” Dak’s voice was echoing down the well. He had had a hand on the spinning winch line and felt, rather than saw, the sudden stop.
Lily looked up, arching her neck. She could see his face, just a spot silhouetted in the small bright circle of light, way up at the surface, like a mil-dot on a reticle rifle sight.
“I’m stuck!” she hollered, her voice reverberating so that it sounded close and faraway at the same time. “I thought we figured this width with a sonar probe. We missed something.”
Dak was over the lip of the well in an instant, a carabiner clipped to the metal line. He was dropping to her level in a guided rappel, using his feet to brake against the well’s sides. He slid down to Lily just in time to see her draw her knees tight to her torso and roll into a slow-motion somersault, so that she was now hanging face down.
Dak shone his wrist light down around the wellbore. The beam illuminated a dusty red circle, set like a life-saver in the throat of the well. It was solid around the edges with a hole through the middle, a hole too small to allow Lily to pass.
“At one time that was the bottom of the well,” said Dak. “That’s where the water level was. V
ery likely, iron dropped out of solution there. Ferrous iron oxidizes—forms ferric hydroxide, which binds together. When it dries, it’s hard … obviously. If you come up, we could drop a heavy weight on it . . . or chip away at it with some 9 mm rounds.”
“No going back! That was the deal.”
“Lily!”
“Don’t worry, I’ve got this under control. We brought can openers—remember?” Lily fitted the head of a Stubai piton into her pocket jackhammer and ran it—chattering up and down—around the edge of the obstruction. The iron circle fell away and splashed down into the water with satisfying whoosh.
Lily reseated the hammer in a Velcro pocket. She glanced at the digital readout on her wrist. “That’s way too much time for zero horizontal distance,” she thought. Bracing her fall with crossed arms, she dropped straight down into the water.
“Cold!” she gasped. It felt like ice breaking around her face. Fortunately, the wet suit covered everything—except the face. But that wasn’t the only problem. She couldn’t see! Her landing had kicked up a thousand years of sand and sediment that swirled around her in a dark, murky cloud.
“So much for ‘clear as day!’” she thought. Every time she stepped or kicked with her feet, the sandstorm blossomed again. She leveled off in a prone position, heading off into the darkness and the unknown.
She had the tow motor set on high. That was a mistake. She bounced along like a pinball. To restore a sense of course and command—and to avoid getting beaten up against the tunnel wall—she slowed the motor. She was forced to feel her way along the bore of the karez, and as she set the pitons and strung the guide wire, she blessed Raj for his foresight. Holding on to this line was going to keep those who followed her centered in the bore of the karez and off the walls.
Almost immediately, Lily discovered that the karez was no smooth tube between wells. There were natural gaps where the water flow was wide and tranquil, and pipes where it ran hard and fast. Consequently, she had the sense of being in an old agitator washing machine, pushed forward and tugged back.
Some of the difference in circumference came from Uighur shortcuts, she reasoned—using naturally occurring subterranean vugs and canyons to supplement the water line they had dug. Other changes had come over time, with the wear of water surging through the karez. The water came through in seasonal spurts, lax in the summer and winter, and roaring torrents during the spring melts when ice dams gave way in the mountains. “It is spring now!” she reflected.
Previous surges of water had carved flutes and ribs in the stone sides on the karez, sometimes even gouging out blisters the size of a room. When she encountered those gaps, it was imperative to string the guide rope from side to side over the opening so that those who followed her could move faster and safer, without getting lost.
Lost? As it was, she was sometimes upside down in the water and the dark, one hand on her electric tow, one hand feeling along the rock walls. It was hard work. As a result, she repeatedly checked her wrist monitor. Her elevated metabolism was burning up oxygen. “Damn!” she muttered. Even the rebreather had a finite life. And the time! The digital readout was a blur on her wrist. The worrisome thing about the time was that there was no way to know how long Raj could hold the drug supplier in the cave. If he could buy time, great. If the drug drop was a slam-bang-thank-you-ma’am, then they had no cushion at all. She had to get to the cave.
Everywhere there was a maelstrom of sand, but when Lily entered a constricted passage, she was especially aware of it, because of the added water speed. At those times, Lily could hear the sand gnawing away at her wet suit and rebreather. She could feel the pressure of the water as it shot her faster through the sluice, banging her head and shoulders against the rocks.
Again, she glanced at her wrist monitor. Nearly two hours gone, and she had no clear idea how far along the karez she had moved. Was this panic? She had always had a Zen-like control of her emotions. Now, however, she was aware that her pulse was racing, and her mind returned continually to thoughts of failure and its consequence: Lives lost. Everything she’d worked for ruined. The sting of humiliation.
The rush of the water, the darkness, the mental pressure of a world shrunk to the dimensions of this rock tube, all weighed on her. This was like a stone coffin. All these thoughts were taking a toll. “Some kind of underwater narcosis.” That must be it, she decided. “It was only natural.” And as a natural development, it could be controlled. She slowed her breathing. She willed her heart to relax. She gathered her thoughts and focused on a limited number of tasks. “Run the tow. Follow the rock contours. Set the pitons. String the rope.”
If she hadn’t been concentrating so hard, perhaps she would have heard it sooner: a low rumbling, that seemed to press upon her, drawing ever closer. She arched her back and bent her head down so she could peer back between her fins. She saw a flickering light. “Must be Dak’s light behind me,” she thought. “But it’s coming so fast!”
In a second she felt the pressure and shot forward like a pumpkin seed squeezed between thumb and forefinger. The darkness streaked by her. Then everything stopped. She crumpled into a wall. Her hands reached out and felt its vastness. Then sense, thought, and consciousness slipped away.
60
TEST RESULTS
“They’ve winched up the package, and here they come.” Raj was staring out at the desert, apprehensive and spoiling for a fight.
This is what he saw: There were three pallets altogether, wrapped in wet, glistening Visqueen and stacked on gurneys, two men to a gurney. The men on the gurneys had rifles on their backs. The barrels poked up behind their shoulders. In addition to these six, four other men swinging submachine guns brought up the rear.
On point, a man with a Norinco assault rifle, and another, carrying only a holstered sidearm, walked at the head of the delegation. Each of the men wore sunglasses and scarves pulled up over the nose and mouth to protect against the clouds of sand. They moved like apparitions through that ochre haze.
From his vantage at the mouth of the cave, Raj watched the Chinese strangers come up from the wellhead, shuffling through the sand, hazy images that gradually resolved themselves into men. Those bearing the pallets of plastic bags were slowed by the weight. The others just seemed to Raj to be arrogant, walking as if they owned the world.
The man in the lead carried his left arm across his chest, seemingly frozen into a permanent comma, like Napoleon. He paused, scanning the hillside and the area around the cave to the left and right. The other man, the one with the Norinco, entered the cave first, sweeping the area with his rifle barrel, noting the number of men around Raj and each individual’s position. He walked slowly along the cave perimeter. Raj and his men stood stalk still, only their eyes following him.
The man peered into each Land Rover. Then he stooped and glanced at the undercarriage and wheel wells. He poked at the sand that had been lined off in a grid. He even hefted a spade to make sure it was real.
When he had completed his circuit, he nodded.
Then Napoleon entered the cave.
“Our delivery is on the pallets?” Raj asked.
Napoleon nodded once and gestured at the gurneys. “Have you brought the money?” he asked.
“Of course.” Three of Lily’s men stepped forward, opening suitcases filled with neatly wrapped bundles of yuan.
Glancing around the cave, Napoleon commented with an arched eyebrow, “So many shovels?”
“We’re here ostensibly as archaeologists,” said Raj. “We’ll be taking the heroin out as packing around some of our finds.”
The man laughed. “Very good. I’ll have to remember that. Very theatrical. I should have expected no less.”
“You won’t mind if we test this stuff?” asked Raj stepping forward.
Napoleon nodded assent.
Raj reached to his breast pocket and produced a leather case that unzipped to reveal a pair of lancets that glittered under the cave’s string of electric lights. O
ne stroke with the lancet slit the Visqueen, dewy with drops of water, and spilled white powder on the cave floor.
“Careful with that.”
Raj frowned. He probed the packet with the tip of the lancet. “Two centimeters down it’s as hard as brick,” he muttered.
Raj skinned off the plastic sheets swaddling the brick. He placed some of the loose powder on a sheet of the Visqueen. From his side pocket, he removed a sample bottle with a syringe top.
“Marquis reagent?” asked Napoleon, as if that’s what he had expected.
Raj said nothing. He poised the tip over the powder and gently squeezed the bulb. One drop, then another spilled onto the powder substrate.
Eighteen pairs of eyes followed the procedure. No one said anything. No one even breathed.
Raj looked up. “It’s fake,” he said.
61
IN THE KAREZ
When Lily came to, her heart caught in her throat. She knew exactly where she was—in the karez. She knew exactly what had happened. There had been a surge of water from the spring thaw. She’d been pushed further down the karez, rammed down it, really. What bothered her was the time. How long had she been out? A glance at her watch showed only about 10 minutes lost, ten minutes spent bobbing useless against this wall. Wall? Why was there a wall?
She reached her hands out and spun her body, essentially feeling her way in a circle.
She was caught in a tube, open at only one end, and so tight she could not turn around. This must be a random offshoot from the karez, maybe opened by the water bore that had just surged past, or maybe something they had just missed. She shook her head. “That was two things they had missed!” No telling how long this dead end was. “Dead end?” She hoped that would not prove prophetic. She would have to back her way out.
