The Emperor's Tomb

SIXTY-SEVEN

MALONE STARED BELOW AT YECHENG. THE TOWN SAT AT THE southern rim of the Taklamakan Desert, mountains just to its south. Ni had explained that it was home to about twenty thousand, blessed with a convergence of roads and rivers. Centuries ago, this was where caravans to India had started. Today it remained only as a market town, and a small airport had been constructed in the 1970s to accommodate commerce.

“Looks like the strip is a few miles from town,” he said.

Not many lights burned, the town virtually blacked out. A lighted highway snaked a path across the flat terrain to a small tower, two oversized hangars, and a runway lit to the night. He wondered what awaited them on the ground, but a preview of what that might be could be seen from headlights speeding their way.

Two vehicles.

At this time of night?

“It appears that we have a welcoming committee,” he said.

Cassiopeia was close to another of the cabin windows. “I saw them. Coming quick.”

“Minister Tang is predictable,” Ni said.

Sokolov remained silent, but the concern on his face could not be concealed.

“Stay calm,” Malone said to the Russian. “You all know what to do.”

NI’S BODY STIFFENED. THE LANDING HAD BEEN SMOOTH, AND they were now taxiing toward the tower. The tarmac was dimly lit, but the area around the two hangars and tower was brightly illuminated thanks to rooftop floodlights that cast an oily sheen across the black asphalt. The plane rolled to a stop, the engines still running.

Cassiopeia opened the rear door and hopped out.

Ni followed.

They walked about fifty meters, waiting for two vehicles to roar up to where they stood—one a Range Rover, the other a light-colored van, both bearing the insignia of the police. Ni had seen thousands of similar transports all across China, but never had he been the target of one.

He steadied himself.

Now he knew what the subjects of his investigations felt. Never quite sure what was going to happen, on edge, pondering what the other side may or may not know. He quickly concluded that it was definitely better being on the outside of the cage looking in.

The two vehicles screeched to a stop.

From the Range Rover a short, emaciated man with features far more Tibetan than Han Chinese emerged. He was dressed in an official green uniform and sucked deep drags from a cigarette. The driver stayed in the vehicle. No one exited the van.

Malone had explained what he had in mind and Ni had agreed—since, after all, there were few options.

“Minister Ni,” the man said. “I am Liang of the provincial police. We have been instructed to detain you and everyone aboard this plane.”

He stiffened his back. “Who instructed you?”

“Beijing.”

“There are twenty million people in Beijing. Could you narrow that down?”

Liang seemed not to like the rebuke, but quickly recovered his composure and said, “Minister Tang’s office. The orders were clear.”

Cassiopeia lingered to his right, watching. They carried weapons, his concealed beneath a jacket, hers shielded by an exposed shirttail.

“Do you know who I am?” he asked the policeman in Mandarin.

“I am aware of your position.” The last of the cigarette was flicked away.

“And you still want to detain me?”

“Is there a Russian aboard the plane? A man named Sokolov?”

Ni saw that Cassiopeia caught the name, so he said to her in English, “He wants to know if there is a man named Sokolov with us.”

She shrugged and shook her head.

He faced Liang. “Not that we are aware of.”

“I must search that plane. Instruct the pilot to switch off the engines.”

“As you wish.”

Ni turned, faced the cockpit, and waved his arms in a crossing fashion, sending a message.

Nothing happened.

He turned back. “Would you like me to have the two other men on the plane come off?”

“That would be excellent. Please.”

He faced Cassiopeia and said, “Get them.”

MALONE WATCHED WHAT WAS HAPPENING FROM A HUNDRED feet away. He’d correctly surmised that whoever Tang sent to greet them would expect four people so, when only two left the plane, at some point they would want to see two more.

And Cassiopeia was returning to get them.

NI WAITED AS CASSIOPEIA TROTTED TO THE OPEN CABIN DOOR and gestured.

Two men leaped down, and they all headed toward where he stood with the police chief.

Liang reached into his pocket and removed a folded sheet.

He was afraid of this.

Liang unfolded the page and Ni spotted a black-and-white photo, the face unmistakable.

Sokolov.

“Neither of these men is the Russian,” Liang said. “The other man should be American. These men are Chinese.”

MALONE COULD SEE THAT THINGS WERE NOT GOING WELL.

After the wheels had touched ground and they were taxiing to the terminal, he and Sokolov had switched places with the pilots, who’d been unwilling to argue with orders from Ni Yong.

He saw Ni signal with his arms again, apparently wanting him to kill the engines. The police had not been fooled.

“What are you going to do?” Sokolov asked.

“Not what they expect.”

CASSIOPEIA HEARD THE PLANE’S MOTORS REV, THE PROPELLERS spinning faster, the fuselage turning left and inching forward, toward them. The policeman spoke to Ni in an excited voice, and she did not require an interpreter to know what was being said.

The policeman pointed and Ni casually turned and watched as the plane kept coming, faster now.

Forty meters.

The two pilots panicked and ran toward the tower. The policeman let them go, clearly knowing they were not the men he sought.

The propellers’ wash churned the dry air. It felt good. She’d been wearing the same clothes since yesterday, bathed in Chinese lake water, then dusted with the earth of a 2,200-year-old tomb.

The plane straightened its path.

Thirty meters.

Cotton was making an entrance.

Grand, as usual.