by Fritz Galt
“Okay, so he planned on everything failing. How does that translate into escaping to Shangri-la?”
“Why create a Third Reich if you know it won’t survive? Why exterminate 11 million people, from Jews and Gypsies to communists, homosexuals and labor unions? Why massacre Russians and Poles? Why join forces with the Japanese? He was looking for global annihilation. Wasn’t the goal of the Third Reich to make him a god? What if he achieved his goal? In his mind, his country was expendable.”
Sullivan thought back over all the propaganda and staged events that had fueled the German’s desire to serve their Führer. “His country was more like a means to an end.”
It could happen to any country. It could happen again.
“As I recall, FDR passed away two weeks earlier.”
“Yes. A great irony. Yet he may have performed the same kind of vanishing act.”
“How might he have pulled that off?”
Linda needed to crack a book for this one. “Here’s the New York Times obituary.”
He scanned it. News of Roosevelt’s death occupied the entire front page.
“It was big news,” Linda said. “Primarily because it came as a shock to everyone, from the public to his own doctor. Sure he was suffering from a variety of debilitating diseases—polio, hypertension and abdominal ailments being the worst of them. But none was life threatening. In fact, at the time of his death on April 12, 1945, he was alone at Warm Springs, Georgia. His death was so unexpected that no personal contacts were there with him, including family, high-ranking officials, intimate friends, or even his personal physician. They were all busy with the war.”
“Say he didn’t die, how could he sneak out of the country?”
“FDR had the entire military at his disposal, and he had vanished in the past. He could pop up at any moment along the Black Sea or on a ship in the middle of the Pacific. It’s possible that he pulled such a stunt, only this time faking his own death and having his doctor cover up for him.”
Sullivan stared at the articles. Many showed how unprepared Washington was for the news. A major headline read: “Even His Family Unaware of Condition,” another smaller subhead read, “ News of Death Stuns Capital,” and lastly another stated, “Personal Physician Surprised.”
“Surely there was a postmortem report.”
“If there was, it’s now missing. FDR’s medical record was kept in a safe at Bethesda Naval Hospital in Maryland, and the file has been missing since the time of his death.”
“Curious.”
How unsettling. Had Roosevelt engaged the Japanese and Chinese in China in order to acquire the territory charted out by Joseph Rock in western China?
“On a lighter note,” he said, “how did Stalin die?”
“You mean vanish.” Again, she drew from her memory. “Josef Stalin disappeared from the world stage under even more mysterious circumstances.”
“Pray tell.” He was enjoying this. Linda was more than a gifted researcher. She was a storyteller with a flair for the dramatic.
“Some say Stalin died like FDR of natural causes following a brain hemorrhage. Others speculate that he was assassinated before he could plunge the Soviets into another World War. Or he could have simply left the country. In any case, nobody saw him die.”
“How so?”
“On February 28, 1953, Stalin entertained his inner circle with a movie at the Kremlin, followed by a night of feasting at his dacha a few kilometers outside of Moscow. Among those attending were his successor Nikita Khrushchev and the head of the KGB, Lavrenty Beria. Don’t you just love those names?”
The names still sent shivers down Sullivan’s spine.
“Later that night when the friends finally left, Stalin did a very uncharacteristic thing for one so obsessed with security and known for bullying his guards. He ordered the guards to go to bed and not disturb him.”
“Go to bed?”
“Exact quote, direct from the mouth of the head guard. So they all slept until noon the next day. Stalin never reappeared all afternoon. Then a light turned on at his window at 6:30 p.m., which put the guards at ease. However, by 10:00 p.m. Stalin had still not materialized. Twenty-four hours had passed since his guards had last seen him.”
Sullivan remembered newsreels of the event. “But there was a body.”
“Yes.” Linda sat forward. “The politburo returned to the dacha, Stalin was removed to a hospital, and four days later, he officially died. A public funeral was held the next day. After that, an embalmer worked for half a year installing internal pumps and fans so the body could rest at state for eternity. The corpse was later removed from the Kremlin and dumped into an unmarked grave outside a church in Moscow.”
“So, you’re saying he may not have died then and there, rather he slipped away in the night? Then some other body was fixed up to look like him, and we have no remains left to study?”
She nodded and sat back.
He reflected on Stalin’s role at Potsdam. In short succession, FDR then Hitler had vanished. Stalin knew what they were after, because he was after the same thing himself. And Shangri-la would be ruined if the world knew of its existence. So he decided to keep it a secret, the result being the typewritten dictate, the Shangri-la Code forbidding anyone from learning about the place. The rule was to be enforced by a single emissary to the real world.
If Sullivan wanted to argue that Hitler, FDR and Stalin had survived and found paradise, he could make the case. What other world leaders had been up to the same tricks? Kublai Khan? Hirohito?
He buried his head in his hands. Was this merely a remarkable coincidence? Was he working too hard to connect the dots?
Then the snatches of conversation that he had heard at the deli came back to him. “What were people talking about at lunch?”
“Something about leaders going on vacation or into hiding.”
His eyes shot up to Linda. Could the same historic scenario be happening all over again?
“Do you know where President Webster is?”
“Oh, he already left for China.” She gave him a funny look. “You don’t keep up on current events, do you.”
China. Oh, god.
And speaking of the president, another phrase stuck in his mind. “A presidential pardon mid term? Maybe I should try white-collar crime. And where does he go…to the Alps.” What white-collar crime were they talking about?
Richter.
Sullivan pounced on his computer and performed a news search on the name.
Story after story appeared about Professor Richter, Brad’s stepfather. The president had pardoned Richter for charges of treason. The guy was legally off the hook. But the press wanted to know where he was and what he was up to. But Richter could not be found. It was believed he left the country. The press had no leads, but suspected that he had changed his identity and fled to Europe to escape public scrutiny.
“Why are you interested in Richter?” Linda said over his shoulder. “That’s old news.”
“Richter happens to be my son’s step-father. He’s a schemer and up to no good.”
“I’m familiar with the case,” Linda said. “He has quite a record.”
“He thinks big. And this whole thing smells bad. I’ve got to reach Brad.”
He picked up the phone and dialed Brad’s cell number. No luck. The recording told him in Chinese, then English, that he was unreachable. He searched his memory and came up with May’s cell phone number. No answer there, either.
He stared at Richter’s face on the computer screen, a photo that had appeared on the FBI’s Most Wanted list. Where had he seen that face recently? He couldn’t recall, and it gnawed at him.
In any event, given the history of Richter’s violent abuse of Brad, he had to get a warning through to his son.
Chapter 53
Beau Buford woke up at dawn to a phone call. It was the President of the United States.
“Buford. I am here to thank you.”
Buford rub
bed his eyes and instinctively reached for his black toupee. Was this a dream?
“What’s up, Mr. President?”
“We’re airborne, and I see nothing but beauty calling to me like a siren. God, I’m glad I didn’t bring my wife.”
Buford heard a clicking noise. “Wait, I’ve got a call on my other line.” He put the president on hold and straightened his toupee. “Yes?”
“Good morning, Mr. Buford, I just called to thank you.” It was the Prime Minister of Great Britain.
“Glad you’re satisfied.”
Then another clicking sound. “Yes?”
“Bravo, signore. Grazie tante.”
“Sure thing, Signor Presidente.”
Several calls later, he was beaming like the father of a newborn child. He switched back to the American president. “What do you see now?”
“We’re landing.”
“Can you describe it?” Buford had no intention of entering paradise, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t curious about it.
“It’s out of this world…”
The phone went dead.
“Chuck?”
He thought back to Liang’s similar reaction. It reminded him of someone on a drug trip, or what a holdover from the 60s might say.
In the end, he didn’t want to take part in anybody else’s fantasy. He was creating a fantasy of his own.
He got on the intercom. “Fetch me a bucket of caviar.”
“It’s six in the morning, sir,” his butler said.
Oh yeah. “Have it brought around for lunch, along with some Dom Pérignon.”
“Will you be dining alone, sir?”
The prospect of spreading his happiness around seemed more appealing. “Grab some young women from the local modeling college.”
That would round out the picture perfectly.
“And set everything up along the lake. White linens, silver. The whole nine yards.”
He was feeling magnanimous, even grandiose.
“Have you looked outside yet?” the butler said.
“I don’t care what’s happening outside. I want lunch by the lake.”
“Very well, sir.”
Interesting that he was so euphoric when the previous day had been utterly depressing and painful. Was he suffering from uncontrollable mood swings?
He stumbled through the dark to his window and opened the shutters. It was dawn, but the light didn’t sting his eyes. Instead, the world had taken on a tinge of gray. Storm clouds had gathered, and patches of water in the lake were already splashing with raindrops.
It felt like he was at odds with the world. When everyone was happy, he was in agony. And when the world was gray, he was ecstatic.
He watched the kitchen staff lean against the wind and duck in the rain. They carried out chairs and tables and tried to wipe away rainwater as it accumulated.
Another smile crept across his face. This was funny. Very, very funny.
Chapter 54
Brad and May’s bus was alone on the road to Shangri-la. As the nicely paved two-lane quickly ascended the mountains north of the flatlands, Brad looked about for paradise. To the west, the peaks rose high and steep. To the east, semiarid hills rolled into the haze.
Under a warm mid-afternoon sun, they entered one fertile valley after another. Charming rural scenes met the eye. Herders prodded pigs and water buffalo. Carefully terraced slopes were dotted with cisterns to hold water. And villages clustered on the tops of hills.
He and his fiancée were traveling through idyllic countryside without a possession to their name. Except for the lump in his pocket.
Oh yeah. His cell phone. It was strange that he hadn’t heard from Earl all day. And how about his dad? Igor Sullivan had been in DC for twenty-four hours. What had he learned? Why hadn’t he called?
He took out the phone and examined it. The screen was dark. He jabbed at the power button, but it didn’t come to life.
May sat up. “What happened?”
“My phone died.”
She grabbed it and shook it. “Is he recharged?”
“Nope.”
“That explains it,” she said, and handed it back with exasperation. “Try mine.”
He took hers and looked for its power button.
“I will do it,” she said, and took the phone back. She clicked a button, and water oozed out of the keypad. She shook the water out and tried again. No luck.
“Looks like the lake killed it,” he said. “These things aren’t built for water.”
She stared at the instrument in disbelief. “I killed my phone.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“Don’t worry? My phone book is in here.”
He smiled sympathetically. “We’re both dead in the water. Maybe we can get me a new battery in town.”
The road took them over a mountain pass, then descended into a more populous area. A sign welcomed them to the “Kingdom of Nonferrous Metal.” It gave him a shiver of excitement.
It appeared that silver and lead mining had made the area prosperous, but the hillsides were stripped of vegetation. The Bai minority walked alongside the road wearing Chairman Mao army hats, puffy on top and jauntily tilted back. It was as if the Great Helmsman had never died.
Then Dali Prefecture became Lijiang Prefecture. The road widened to a four-lane and there were cars. All of which gave a sense of a looming city, but there remained little in the way of industry.
Brad poked May, who was sleeping peacefully against his shoulder. “I’m worried about another roadblock.”
“Roadblock?”
She straightened up abruptly.
“Ting che,” she called out to the driver. He hit the brakes.
Well, there was no roadblock, but they might as well get off the bus anyway. Brad remembered to thank the driver, who had guided them through one of the most enchanting landscapes he had ever beheld. Now he was surrounded by terraced fields that were muddy from irrigation.
May stood slump-shouldered in the oversized man’s coat. Her perfect complexion didn’t match the dusty, masculine clothes. She made the perfect poster of a peasant, but she was gawking at him.
He didn’t want to know what he looked like. He was a blue-haired geek in an apron.
“I think you need a hat,” she said.
He fondled his dark curls. “You don’t like my new look?”
Up the hillside sat a row of aluminum stalls and tables. Vendors played mahjong in the shade. “Let’s go shopping,” he said.
They climbed up to investigate. Judging from the number of religious mementos on display, they were near a temple. They also found scarves, shawls and caps. May picked out a pointed pink Tibetan hat with earflaps. It was hideous, but she tried it on him. The wool scratched his neck. Women gathered around and seemed to approve.
May bought the hat.
“What is this place?” he said.
She asked a woman and got an answer. Apparently they were at the foot of a Tibetan Buddhist lamasery.
Buddhism, interesting. The Chinese had kicked out the Dalai Lama and many of his followers and replaced them with a church that followed the dictates of Beijing. Tibetan Buddhism did survive in China, but no longer looked to Lhasa for political and religious leadership.
How much of the theology had been altered in the process? “I’m curious if we can go into the lamasery.”
“Yes, my lovely wife,” she said, and put a protective arm around him.
“Quit that, will you?”
It was embarrassing enough to be a six-foot woman with a four o’clock shadow. But he wouldn’t be patronized.
He stormed up to the gate at the end of the stalls, then froze. A police radio crackled ahead. He pirouetted to leave, but May caught his arm.
A ticket seller waited at the booth and a ticket taker stood at the gate. Slumped over in a chair with his feet resting on a bicycle rack was a policeman. Brad pulled the flaps low over the stubble on his cheeks while May purchased the ticke
ts.
They tiptoed past the cop, handed over the tickets, and proceeded to a cool stand of trees.
Brad sucked in his breath. It was the first time he had come face-to-face with Tibetan Buddhism. And what an eyeful it was: spruce trees wrapped in white scarves that fluttered in the breeze, flags draped from poles, brass prayer wheels, flowerpots everywhere.
They climbed the steps of the temple. He had to wave a cloud of incense away to see.
Beyond the red columns, multi-colored tapestries hung from the ceiling. Long candles burned atop intricately painted tables. A circular tube of fabric dangled high over prayer cushions that sat before a carving of Buddha. Apparently the tube conveyed one’s prayers to heaven.
Next to the Buddha stood other large carvings, as if other gods held an equal place in the pantheon of deities. To the left was the goddess of mercy, and to the right stood the founder of white hat Buddhism.
But Brad stayed in front of the Buddha. Monks had created an elaborate mandala on the floor. He tipped his cap back to study it.
Designing a mandala was part of the Kalachakra initiation ceremony. Using colored sand, monks would have taken eight days to create the circular design. Students would be allowed into the room only after its completion. Each student would receive a red blindfold to symbolize his or her ignorance and the fact that he or she was spiritually unprepared to see the mandala.
Slowly, Brad pulled the hat off his head. Light filtered in from above, and he was able to hear more clearly. Birds sang in the shaded sanctuary, and May was twirling a prayer wheel behind him.
He studied the Wheel of Life mandala more carefully. In the center of the innermost ring lay Kalapa, the capital of Shambhala, where the king resided. The capital was surrounded by icy mountains that reflected outward in all directions.
