The Hunt for Shambhala

27

Decker had put the Avalon down in some tight spaces, but landing on the Yadong River was pushing things even for him. Deep in the valley now, the ridges of the snow-capped mountains on both sides were high above the vintage floatplane. The windows gave a view of high altitude firs, birches and kharsu oaks flashing past them as they roared down the narrow valley toward the river.

Judging a water landing wasn’t easy. Most runways he used for his cargo flights used VASI, or a visual approach slope indicator. This was a simple setup of lights at the side of the runway. These lights were designed to appear red or white depending on the angle at which the pilot was seeing them. This helped the pilot judge if he was on the correct glide slope, or angle needed to touch down on the right part of the runway. Too many white lights and you were too high and about to sail right over the airfield. Too many red lights and you were on a crash course with the ground — to many reds and you’re dead, as the saying went — but two whites over two red and you’re bang on target.

There was none of that when landing on water, which could be a problem when the landing site was a rushing torrent filled with rocks. Decker wiped the sweat from his brow and replaced his hand on the yoke. Absent-mindedly, he licked his lips and blinked as he refocused his gaze on the river below.

This was the roof of the world, where China, India and Bhutan came together in a mess of disputed, tangled borders and the wildest mountain ranges on Earth.

In the movies, the plane just slipped on down and the actors powered on to the final act, but this wasn’t the movies. This was a real life, and he was really flying twelve tons of wood, steel and chrome down nature’s idea of a bowling alley at just over one hundred miles an hour. A momentary lapse of concentration meant turning the Avalon into a raging fireball, killing all his friends and letting Madan complete his psychotic plan to destroy civilization.

Not an option.

He gently pulled back the throttle a fraction of an inch and reduced power. The faithful old aircraft lost more altitude as he steered against a strong crosswind whistling through the narrow valley. The others looked on in silence as he made another power reduction. The river below was racing up to meet them at a staggering speed now, and Selena pushed back into her seat instinctively.

The former US Marine casually feathered the propeller to reduce the drag and adjusted the trim tab one last time. Pulling the throttle back to idle now, the engines responded instantly and they all heard the revs drop away and a second later they were down,

“We’re on the water, everyone,” Decker said almost to himself. He steered the aircraft gently to the riverbank on their starboard side and breathed out with relief as he patted the instrument panel as if it were a loyal Labrador.

“Not a bad job,” Selena said tying her hair up. “I can see that with a little practice you’d be very good at this flying lark.”

Decker opened his mouth to reply to the Englishwoman, but shut it right back up again. There was no talking to someone like that.

Bringing the aircraft to a stop at the side of the river, they unbuckled their belts and after gathering the equipment they needed, and some weapons from the plane’s armory, they climbed out of the starboard hatch and stepped out into the small town.

The people of Yadong didn’t quite know what to make of a 1940s flying boat splashing down in their quiet part of the world, and they slowly gathered in number as the Avalon crew assembled at the side of the river.

“Looks kinda neat,” said Riley.

“Looks like the sort of place that’s great to turn around in,” Decker said with a frown. “Come with me.”

Riley followed Decker back inside the Avalon and they reappeared a few moments later heaving a large object between the two of them. It was wrapped in a tarp which was lashed down with old seat belts from the plane.

Selena raised an eyebrow. “And that is?”

Decker just looked at her. “You want to go up the river, right? I mean, you’re not planning on swimming to the coordinates, right?”

“Ah — a boat!”

“You are one smart lady,” he said with a sarcastic wink. “An RIB as a matter of fact — a Rigid Inflatable Boat.”

While Decker and Riley constructed the boat, Diana quelled the increasingly perplexed crowd of townsfolk with a few quiet words of garbled Chinese.

After a few moments they were ready to go, and they climbed into the inflatable boat as Decker yanked the start cord. It took a second attempt before the fifteen horsepower two-stroke fired up, puffing a small cloud of blue smoke into the air. He lowered the propeller into the rushing water of the Yadong River and turned the tiller, steering the boat out into the middle of the icy water and starting their journey up the Yadong River.

The sun flashed on the powerhead of the motor as its gentle hum filled the air. Decker lowered his aviator shades from his forehead until his eyes were covered, and leaned back on his elbow. For a moment he, he almost relaxed.

“No tourists up here,” Riley said, scanning the scree and fir covered slopes either side of the river. “Too far for the fat bastards to waddle.”

Selena rolled her eyes. “I can’t take you anywhere.”

Their journey up the winding, exotic river had whisked each one of them away from the individual problems of their lives, and for an hour or so they had forgotten the danger they were in. The white water rushed past their boat and Decker calmly steered them through the obstacle course of razor-sharp rocks and shallow banks as they continued their way north.

Nearing the coordinates, the conversation turned to back to business, but not for long. After spending a few seconds talking through their tactics, the peace of the wild river was shattered by the crack of a gunshot and the sharp, metallic ping of a bullet ricocheting off the front of their boat.

Diana gasped and Selena shot a glance at Decker back on the tiller. “What the hell was that?”

Like the others, Riley Carr crouched down into the boat and desperately scanned the area for the sniper. “We’re under fire!”

Decker’s eyes crawled over the mass of trees and rocks lining the two steep mountain sides either side of the valley.

“Rocks!” Johar yelled.

Decker spun the wheel and steered the boat around a pile of rocks racing toward their boat. The raging rapids sucked them deeper into the gorge and now the craggy canyon loomed above them until only the slimmest slit of gray sky was visible.

“Where the hell is he?” Riley yelled, desperately scanning the edge of the gorge cliffs high above for any sign of the shooter.

“Not he,” Charlie said, checking his mag and pulling the slide back on his SIG. “They… look!” He pointed into the crack of sky ahead of them and the silhouettes of at least three men were visible along the top of the cliffs.

“Christ almighty!” Decker said. “Madan has the whole river covered!”

“We’re sitting ducks!” Selena said.

Riley spun around. “Who’s shitting ducks?”

Selena rolled her eyes. “I’ll give you one thing, Carr — you really are hard to keep down.”

“Which is funny,” the Australian said with a grin. “Because that’s what all the babes say.”

“Oh for fu—” A bullet ended her sentence midway, ripping through the bow’s grab rope and pinging off the rub strake. “Holy crap, that was close!” she said, visibly shaken up.

Decker spun the wheel again and sent a high arc of river water spraying up into the air on their starboard side as he strained to dodge the incoming fire. The small outboard motor revved wildly as they swerved from side to side to evade bullets one second and razor-sharp rocks in the river bed the next.

“Get the damned Remington!” the American yelled.

“I like your thinking, mate,” Riley said, reaching forward into the bag and pulling out the enormous shotgun. As the boat raced from side to side, the Australian struggled to load the twelve gauge cartridges into the weapon, but after a few tries he turned to the others with his famous smile. “Loaded and ready to go.”

Without another word he lifted the gun and fired it into the air at one of the men high above them. A direct hit, the man tumbled down off the cliff and smacked into a small island of rocks in the middle of the river.

“Christ, Riley,” Selena said, rubbing her ear. “You could have let me know you were going to fire it.”

“I didn’t load it just so I could scratch my arse with the barrel.”

“Still…”

He shrugged his broad shoulders. “Foras admonitio, Lena… foras admonitio.”

“Huh?” said Decker.

“Without warning, mate,” Riley said. “Motto of my old commando regiment before I went into the SAS.”

More gunfire rained down from the men in Madan’s defensive perimeter as Johar fired at a man on their portside, hiding up in some scraggy shrubs along the western ridgeline.

Charlie also returned fire now, rapid bursts of three. The spent casings fired out of the ejector port at a rate of knots and disappeared into the rushing rapids that were flashing past their boat. On target, he emptied the magazine and took out another of the men.

With both the chamber and the magazine now empty, the pistol slide locked open so Charlie pushed in a new magazine. This automatically chambered the first round of the mag and he was ready to go, once again lifting the gun into the aim and firing on the shooters ahead of them.

“There’s so many of the bastards!” Riley said.

“Madan must have ordered them to form a perimeter all the way around the location,” Decker yelled forward from the stern.

“At least we know we’re in the right place,” Riley said.

Diana gave him a look. “We didn’t need this to tell us that, Riley! My translations are always good and Stanhope’s coordinates were perfectly clear.”

“Sorry, ba… sorry, Diana.”

She gave him a smile. “Forget it.”

“I just hope they don’t know where the Avalon is,” Decker said, shaking his head. “That plane gets shot up and we’re trapped here.”

“Shot up?” Charlie said. “If they find it they’ll blow it up, never mind shooting it.”

“They certainly will,” Johar added.

Decker glared at them, looking more panicked now than when they realized they were being hunted by snipers. “Huh? You think they’d do that?”

Riley reloaded the shotgun. “Are you crazy, mate? Of course they fuckin’ would!”

“You guys live like this every day?” the American said with a shake of his head.

“Not every day,” Selena said.

“All I want is a quiet cargo business… a few nice, gentle flights every week… a steady income… and now this.”

“Ah, fuck off, mate!” Riley said, slapping his hand down on the American’s shoulder. “You love it!”

“Wrong,” Decker said wearily. “You love it because you’re a kid. I do not love it because I’m…”

“Just an old fart?”

“I was going to say in comfortable middle age,” Decker said. He lowered his voice so his words were masked by the sound of the chase, “…asshole.”

“And I’m no kid,” Riley said. “Five years in the commando regiment and four in the SAS. A kid went in but he didn’t come out, believe me.”

Decker nodded his head. He hadn’t meant to insult him, but the truth was he had at least fifteen years on the Australian and he was starting to feel old around the much younger, stronger man.

But Riley was clearly not bothered, as he was now firing the Remington into the air at the snipers, and between him and Charlie they were taking out the last of them.

With the last man down, the Australian turned and put the shotgun over his broad shoulder. “Not really the weapon for it, but it felt like a duck hunt, so that’s all cool.”

Selena shook her head but kissed him on the cheek all the same. Like the others she was glad it was over but they were much further now, and the sunlight was dimmer this deep into the gorge. This could only mean more trouble from Madan and his small army of thugs.

“Thank God that’s over,” Decker said with a sigh. “I hate boats.”

“You think we got all the bastards?” Riley said, scanning the cliff tops as Decker reduced power to the throttle and slowed the RIB.

“Must have,” Diana said. “No one’s shot at us for several minutes now.”

“Fuckers lulling us into a false sense of security maybe?” Charlie said.

“No, I don’t think that’s it,” Selena said. She raised her hand and pointed at a dark recess in the side of the gorge a few hundred yards ahead of them off their port bow. “We’re here.”

“She’s right,” Decker said. “We’re through Madan’s outer perimeter — take a look up ahead.”

They looked along the river and saw two helicopters parked up on the side of the river.

“This is the place then,” Charlie said.

“So now we just have to go inside and get the goodies, right?” Riley said.

“Something tells me it’s going to be a little more complicated that that,” said Charlie.

“Me too,” Selena said, shouldering her backpack and tying her hair up.

Decker cut the engine and steered the boat up into a small bay of fine gravel a hundred yards south of Madan’s choppers sitting incongruously on the river bank. They climbed out of the boat, paranoid about more snipers as they unloaded their weapons and prepared to go inside the canyon.

“You really think Shambhala is in there?” Diana said.

Selena shrugged. “Maybe.”

“Hope so, mate,” Riley said, throwing the Remington over one shoulder and some ammo belts over the other. “Otherwise we’ve come a long fuckin’ way for nothing.”

Decker listened to the banter but made no reply. The comments about the Avalon getting blown up were still bothering him and now he was walking into a Tibetan canyon with a load of strangers who were searching for a mythical kingdom.

Somewhere, sometime, his life seemed to have taken a distinctly wrong turn. He was shaken from his thoughts by Riley Carr who was now standing on a boulder at the cave’s entrance a few yards ahead of him.

“What the hell are you waiting for?” the Australian called out. “Need a dump or something?”

Selena sighed and gave Decker an apologetic look. “I’m so sorry, Mr Decker. He’s not always like this, I promise.”

“Come on, you Jessies!” the young man shouted, and beckoned them with an exaggerated arm wave. “Let’s go shoot some bad guys and get the loot!”