The Trail to Buddha_s Mirror

20

Xao Xiyang stepped out from the modest pavilion at the top of the promontory and waited for the sun to rise. The air was so clear, so lovely, so peaceful that he almost did not wish to light the cigarette in his hand. The long climb and the pure mountain air had cleared his lungs, and the serene panorama almost inspired him to begin a more healthy regimen. The Yi guide had put him to shame, but of course he was much younger, and a native. Xao accepted the rationalization and lit the cigarette.

So… soon he would see his true nature. A dangerous undertaking, considering what he was about to do. He was by no means certain he wanted even a glimpse at his own soul. He leaned over the low railing and sneaked a peek at the mists below. He saw no mirror; it looked like a bowl full of clouds, that was all. But hadn’t the Yi guide assured him that the Buddha’s Mirror appeared every day at dawn and dusk? Superstitions, he thought. They will hold us back.

He felt the quiet presence of his driver behind him. If I am tired, he thought, this good soldier must be exhausted, having raced all the way around to the west side of the mountain and then climbed the treacherous western trail. A true soldier, a good man who should not fear seeing his own soul.

“Is the American with you?” he asked.

“Yes, Comrade Secretary.”

“Good. He is well?”

“He is breathing somewhat heavily.”

“We do not all enjoy your sturdy constitution.”

He offered the driver a cigarette, which the man accepted.

“I take it, then,” Xao said, “that young Mr. Carey took the bait.”

“You have seen the fish in the pool at Dwaizhou?”

“Yes.”

“Like that.”

“Ah.”

Xao considered his contradictory emotions: satisfaction that the plan was working, sadness that the plan had to work to its unrelenting end. The duality of nature-that a great good was always coupled with a great evil, a wonderful gift with a tragic sacrifice. Perhaps the Buddha’s Mirror will show me two faces.

“When do you think they will arrive?” Xao asked.

“For the sunset.”

So it will be sad and beautiful, Xao thought. Appropriate.

“Have him ready,” Xao ordered.

He could sense the driver’s unease.

“Yes?” Xao asked. “Speak up, we are all socialist comrades.”

“Are you certain, Comrade Secretary, that you want to… complete the operation? There are alternatives.”

“You have become fond of him.”

There was no answer.

Xao said, “There are alternatives, but they are risky. Risks are unacceptable when so much is at stake. Our personal feelings cannot matter.”

“Yes, Comrade Secretary.”

“You must be hungry.”

“I am fine.”

“Go eat.”

“Yes, Comrade Secretary.”

The driver stepped away. Xao watched the sun rise over the Sichuan basin. He knew what the driver had been hinting at-there was no operational reason for Xao to be here at all.

True, he thought, but there is a personal one. A moral reason. When one orders the death of an innocent, one must have the character to watch it.

Xao peered into the mists below him to search for his soul.

Simms was just goddamn miserable. He had spent the night in a damp, dirty, rat-infested Buddhist Disneyland, had to squat over an open trench to take a dump, and now he was standing in the cold fog, trying to choke down a bowl of rice gruel, waiting for the sun to rise so he could climb a few thousand more steps.

He yearned for the comforts of the Peak: a decent meal, a good bottle of bourbon, a young lady wrapped in silk. The thought of spending the rest of his life in the PRC made his stomach turn more than the rice gruel did. It was so dull here, so frigging monotonous, so spartan.

The thought galvanized him, made him urge the sun to hurry up. If he didn’t do what he had to do-grease Neal Carey-he might very well have to spend his remaining days here in this communist paradise. If Carey made it back to the States and slobbered about what the mean Mr. Simms did to him, the folks at the Company might notice the conflict with his job description. They might start asking some unfortunate questions. Then even those shit-for-brains might figure out that he was taking a regular paycheck from the Chinese. And that could get ugly. Probably even that stupid geek Pendleton had put it together.

He unzipped the long case and pulled out the rifle. The Chinese 7.62 Type 53 was by no means his favorite, but it would do. He favored bolt action, and the telescopic sight adjusted nicely. He sat down behind a large rock and screwed the sight onto the barrel. Then he hoisted the rifle to his shoulder, braced it against his cheek, and checked the sight out in the gathering light.

He spotted a band of monkeys in some bamboo about two hundred yards down the slope. He thought about his confrontation the day before with the fucking little bastards. I’ll show them an ambush. He centered the cross hairs on the chest of the largest monkey in the group, and squeezed the trigger. The shot threw high and to the left. He adjusted the sights accordingly, and aimed again. The monkey continued to gnaw on some exotic piece of fruit. The bullet slammed squarely into his chest and sent him tumbling down the hill.

Okey-dokey, Simms thought as he slung the rifle over his shoulder. He tried to force the excitement of imminent revenge out of his system, but every time he thought about struggling out of that fucking river, he got angry. He had damned near drowned, and he had sure as hell scraped the shit out of his legs crawling onto those rocks and pulling himself out. So, while revenge might be unprofessional…

He walked back to the old dining hall to find Peng and that other little slant. He’d probably need a crowbar to pry them from their rice bowls. He’d just about needed a gun to force them to walk in the dark last night, the little chickenshits. What did they think flashlights were for, the movies? Well, anyway, they’d picked up a couple of hours before packing it in for the night. Now it was time to get moving again.

Neal struggled out of the kang. Just turning to put his feet on the floor hurt, and bending over to put on his shoes was an exercise in advanced masochism. Lan wanted to do it for him, but Neal figured that if he couldn’t put his own shoes on, he damned well couldn’t climb the rest of the mountain.

Lan diplomatically withdrew as Neal winced with pain, and reappeared a few minutes later with two steaming bowls of porridge.

“What’s that?” Neal asked.

“Congee,” she replied. “Rice gruel.”

Neal ate the Chinese version of oatmeal gratefully-the thin cereal warmed his stomach in the early morning cold. He ate standing up; he didn’t want to put himself through the small torture of having to sit down and get up again. They finished their breakfast quietly, the tension between them palpable. The mountain’s summit would be the deciding point in their relationship, and they both felt it but didn’t want to talk about it. First they must get to the top of the mountain.

The trail started gently and led through a thick cedar forest. It was cold and dark, and Neal shivered. The altitude was starting to get to him, and he noticed that he was starting to breath heavily. He couldn’t help but notice; each breath stabbed his rib cage.

They walked for about twenty minutes to the far edge of the woods. Neal looked ahead on the trail and wished that he hadn’t; the steps ahead seemed to go straight up.

“Three Look Stairway,” Li said. “Pilgrims look at it three times before they want to climb it.”

“I’ve looked at it three times,” Neal answered, “and I still don’t want to climb it.”

The grade was so steep that his knees practically touched his chest with every step. He consciously pushed off the balls of his feet, trying to concentrate on his legs as his ribs burned and stabbed him. He had to stop after the first twenty steps.

Li turned around. “Please go back to the monastery. I will bring Robert down.”

“Right.”

“I promise.”

“I started out to climb the fucking mountain. I am going to climb the fucking mountain.”

“You are a fool.”

“I’m not arguing.”

She turned and started back up. He caught his breath and went after her. Yi, ar, yi, ar, yi, aaarrgh! His ribs threatened him. He felt the sun begin to beat on his hunched-over back. Yi, ar, yi, ar… yi… ar … yi… ar… yi… ar… yi. He stopped to rest again. He wanted to collapse on the stairs, to lie down and rest, but he knew he probably couldn’t get up again, so he forced himself to take another step. Wrapping one arm around his ribs, he took another step. The pain nauseated him. Another step. More pain. Another. Yi, ar, yi, ar. Another rest.

He started out again. The trail curved sharply and then opened out onto the edge of a cliff. To Neal’s right a sheet or rock rose as high as he could see. To his left-much to closely to his left-was a drop of at least a thousand feet.

Don’t look down, Neal warned himself. Isn’t that what they say in all the movies?

He peeked again. His stomach lurched and his head spun. That’s probably why they say not to look down, he thought. He felt as if he were hanging on to the edge of the world as he began his trudge up the mountain again. Yi, ar, yi, ar, yi…

Just focus on counting, he thought. Don’t think about the pain, don’t think about the fear, don’t think about Pendleton, or about her, and for God’s sake, whatever you do, don’t think about the fact that they’re gaining on you. At this pace, they have to be gaining on you. Gaining fast. But don’t think about that. Think about yi, ar, yi, ar… yi… ar… yi… ar… for two solid hours straight up the hill.

Li was waiting for him on a broad landing.

She pointed up ahead of her. He could see a huge peak, shaped like a big nose, rising above the rest of the rocks.

“The summit,” she said.

“How far?”

“Four hours. Perhaps for you six.”

Perhaps for me death.

“Is it all this steep?”

“Most. One place is gentle, almost level. But, I am afraid, it is also very frightening,”

Swell.

“Why frightening?”

“The path is very narrow.”

“Over a very long fall?”

She nodded and frowned. Then she smiled and added, “But after that, it is a short climb to summit.”

Neal looked at the summit again. Fuck you, Silkworm’s Eyebrow! I’m coming and you can’t stop me! You took your best shot and I’m still on my feet, still climbing!

“Let’s get going,” he said.

Xiao Wu crossed the Bridge of Deliverance. The spray from the waterfall felt good. The day was very hot, even up here on the mountain, and his feet hurt. All he had to wear were his leather city shoes, and the blisters had already started to form the day before. Today they were raw, and he wished he could stop and dip his feet into the pool below the bridge.

But the American was setting an unrelenting pace. Even fat Peng was keeping up with it, so Wu thought that he had to do it as well. Besides, they were still angry with him for letting Frazier get away, and they only brought him along so he could point out exactly where the fugitive had started up the mountain.

Perhaps, Wu thought, I should have misled them. That would have been treason, of course, but why is the American carrying the rifle? Why is the American here at all? It doesn’t seem right.

They were going to kill Frazier, he knew that, and that didn’t seem right, either.

He forced the thought from his mind and picked up his pace.

Neal collapsed at the top of Three Look Stairway. He turned over on his back and gasped with pain and fatigue. He didn’t even try to stop the tears from rolling down his cheeks. His chest heaved and his ribs hurt like they were breaking all over again. He could barely hear Li walking back down the path toward him.

In fact, he could barely hear at all. An incredible roar of rushing water echoed in the canyon and reverberated inside his head. The path was enclosed in a heavy mist.

Maybe the nuns were right about Purgatory, Neal thought.

“Thundering Terrace!” Li yelled. “The dragon and the thunder live below!”

Neal nodded.

“You are in pain?”

Neal rolled his eyes and nodded.

“There are caves just up the path! We will rest!”

She helped Neal to his feet. He staggered behind her, out of the mist and onto a broader terrace, behind which a cave burrowed into the cliff. She helped him to sit down. Even seated, they could now see the path below them. They could see the roofs of several monasteries, the trail below, the torturous stairs. They could see three figures climbing the trail near where Neal had fallen the day before.

“They have followed you,” Li said. She sounded devastated.

“I’m afraid so.”

“You should have let me go at Leshan.”

“You’d be dead if I had.”

“It would still be better.”

They sat quietly for a moment.

“Two Chinese and one American.”

“How can you tell?”

“By the way they walk.”

She stood up. “The resting is finished.”

He struggled to his feet. “We can still make it, can’t we? Get to Pendleton in time to hide? To keep running?”

She stood for a moment, calculating. “Perhaps. Perhaps. There is left the Eighty-four Switchbacks, the Elephants’s Saddle, and the Buddha’s Ladder. Perhaps three hours.”

“We can make it.”

“We can at least warn Father.”

It doesn’t sound good, Neal thought. The Saddle sounded easy, but the Eighty-four Switchbacks? A ladder? Their pursuers were maybe three hours behind. Maybe. But they were gaining.

“You’d better go ahead,” he said.

“They will kill you.”

“Nah, they’ll just criticize me severely. I can take it.”

“They will kill you. Come.”

She started out, and he fell in behind her. Five minutes’ walk along the shelf took them to the first switchback. He looked up and saw what looked like an endless series of stone fire escapes zigzagging up the precipice. The first few switchbacks were fairly easy, but grew steeper as they worked higher up the mountain. About ten switchbacks in, the grade became almost as tough as Three Look Staircase, and Neal found his knees brushing his chest as he ascended the steps.

The sight of their hunters gave him a good shot of adrenaline, which lasted for a good forty switchbacks. After it had worn off, Neal had to search for a motivator. Fear didn’t do it, neither did anger. Duty gave him five switchbacks, loyalty another seven, love another twelve. Contempt only got him one, pride less than one-half, a reprise of loyalty got him over the next difficult two, guilt took him for three, and then he dropped.

“Fourteen more and then level!” Li Lan shouted down from the switchback above.

Neal lay in a fetal position on the steps. Fourteen? I don’t have fourteen more steps. I have nothing left.

“Go ahead!”

From the corner of his eye he saw her stand for a moment, and then begin a slow trudge away. She’s beat too, he thought. Christ, I’ve lost everything.

And when you’ve lost everything, you have nothing left to lose. Clever boy. He pushed himself up with his hands and stood on unsteady feet. I’ve lost everything, so what the hell? When you’ve lost everything, there’s nothing left to do but keep going.

Come on, one foot in front of the other. Just one, and then just one more. Just one and then one more. Just one. Yi. Yi. Yi. Yi. Fuck the mountain. Fuck Mr. Peng. Fuck Simms. Fuck Friends of the Fucking Family. Step. Step. Fuck my whole stupid, useless life. Step. Step. Yi. Yi. Yi. Yi. Look behind you. The bastards are gaining. Really stepping out. Well, boys, wait until you hit old Three Look Staircase. Wait till you come up the greatly beloved Eighty-four Switchbacks. We’ll see how chipper you are when you step over my dead body.

This huge guy comes into a bar, see, and asks, “Which one of you bastards is O‘Reilly?” Step. Step. And this skinny guy sitting at the bar raises his hand and says, “I’m O‘Reilly.” Step. And the big guy grabs him by the neck, turns him around, punches him three times in the face, step, slams him to the floor, step, kicks him in the groin, picks him up, step, step, hits him in the stomach, throws him down again, step, step, step, kicks him in the balls, stomps on his face, step, step, step… step, step… and storms out of the bar. Step. Step. Step. Then the skinny guys sits up, step, starts to laugh, step, step, step, and says, step, “Boy, did I put one over on him!” Step, step, step.

“I’m not O’Reilly!”

Step, step, step.

Boy, am I putting one over on them.

Step.

Simms spotted them first, but then again he was looking the hardest, and they were outlined pretty clearly against the cliff face. One of them looks hurt, Simms thought. The other is dog-tired.

He nudged Peng and pointed. “There are your puppies!”

Peng was bathed in sweat. Three Look Staircase was worth more than three looks.

“Will we catch up with them?”

“If you can shake your ass!”

“Remember, I want her and Pendleton alive!”

Maybe you do, Simms thought. But I don’t want to take the chance of one of them being part of a spy swap some day and telling all kinds of stories in the debrief.

“Remember,” Peng said. “They are evidence!”

Corpses are evidence, too, Simms thought.

“Let’s worry about that when we catch them, all right?”

Simms saw that this fired up Old Peng and made him waddle a little faster. The kid behind them was fading.

It doesn’t matter, Simms thought. As long as I don’t fade. And I don’t have to catch them, I just have to get in range. The bullets will catch them.

Neal lay down at the top of the eighty-fourth switchback. The path in front of him was fairly level, just a mild grade across a bottomless chasm. Li was laying down also-on her back, rhythmically slowing her breathing, getting ready for the next phase.

“I’ve lost sight of them,” Neal gasped.

“That is bad. It means they are closer. We cannot see them because of the angle.”

“I’ll bet the resting is finished.”

She stood up. “We are on the Elephant’s Saddle. If we cross quickly, we can reach the summit ahead of them. I think, perhaps, in time.”

Neal knew a cue when he heard one, and forced himself up. He indulged in a look over the edge of the trail. It was a mistake. You wouldn’t want to go off either side without a parachute. You wouldn’t want to go off either side with a parachute.

“Is this the time to tell you that I’m afraid of heights?” Neal asked.

“No,” she said as she stepped out.

No sense of humor, Neal thought. Maybe I should try the O‘Reilly joke on her. He picked his way carefully along the dirt trail. Bits of shale slid out from under his foot and rattled off the edge. Neal resisted the temptation to watch them fall into eternity. His rib cage felt as if Reggie Jackson had used it for batting practice. His legs quivered and his ankles shook. He didn’t even want to check in with his feet. He heard noise and looked up to see Li Lan break into a trot ahead of him.

He limped along the path.

Xao’s driver handed his field glasses to his boss.

“They are on the Saddle,” he said.

Xao looked through the glasses. He could make out the figure of Li Lan, strong but tired, jogging up the slope. Carey seemed to be limping far behind her.

“He is injured, I think,” Xao observed.

“Or merely unfit,” the driver answered.

Xao handed back the glasses.

“What about Peng? Can you see him?”

“I lost them when they entered the Thundering Terrace. They must be well up the switchbacks now.”

“You said there were three.”

“Yes, and I could swear one is a Westerner. The one with the rifle.”

“Impossible. Probably a Yi tribesman, a hunter.” The driver shrugged.

“How long?” Xao asked. “An hour at the most. Longer for him.”

“Go and get things ready.”

“Yes, Comrade Secretary.”

An hour, Xao thought. After all these years, one hour to the family reunion.

She reached the Buddha’s Ladder well before he did, of course. It wasn’t a ladder at all, but a severe rise up the side of the summit to the edge of a precipice. On the other side was the Buddha’s Mirror. There were few actual steps here, mostly just a treacherous, slippery dirt path.

She stopped and waited. The view from here was lovely, she thought. Rock peaks seemed to rise straight up from verdant bamboo jungles. Swirling rivers and waterfalls like sapphire brocade on green silk. The entire Sichuan Valley stretched out in front of her. Behind her, Emei’s final peak, gray and austere, waited for her. The sight of her own soul waited for her, and she had waited a long time for it.

The sunset would be scarlet. She could tell that already. How appropriate, she thought, that she would meet herself under a red sky.

“Hurry up!” she shouted to him.

There was much to love about him, she thought as he broke into a jog. It was more like a shuffle, but she admired him for it. What pain it must be costing him! What a stubborn man! And what a price his stubbornness had cost!

“Can you go on?” she asked when he reached her side. He was bathed in sweat. His face was green with pain.

“Yeah. How far behind do you think they are?”

She shook her head. “I think we can make it, but we have no time to waste. Please do not fall behind.”

She squeezed his hand, then turned and started up the last climb. She had tried to encourage him, and perhaps herself, but in her heart she knew it was too late.

Simms watched her. If he’d had a better weapon he might have tried it right there, but that would still have left Carey and Pendleton to deal with. No, better to wait until they were all nice and cozy at the top.

He looked down to where Peng was huffing up the last couple of switchbacks.

“Jesus H. Christ, put it in gear!” Simms yelled.

Nothing more useless than a fat chink, he thought. And the young one is completely useless.

Well, shit, I can’t afford to wait for them.

Come on, he told himself. Let’s get it done.

He pushed out onto the saddle.

Neal worked his way up the slope on his hands and feet. The grade was so severe he couldn’t stand up and walk, so he used his hands to balance. Li Lan was using the same method just above him, only she was making much faster progress. Every few paces Neal’s ribs scraped against the slope, and the fiery pain would stop him for a few precious seconds.

He heard her yell, “There is a flat spot just up here! You can make it!”

He pulled himself along, digging into the dirt with his fingers, literally clawing his way up. It seemed like hours before he made it to where she was sitting behind a large rock on the uphill side of the path. She pulled him behind it with her.

He could see the summit clearly now. What looked like a rough wooden pavilion was perched on the edge of the far side. Two men-no, three-stood on the pavilion and looked down toward the path. Two were of medium build and stocky, one was tall and thin. Pendleton? Neal couldn’t be sure at the distance and angle.

Then he heard voices echo below. Li Lan stood up and peeked over the rock. Then she slammed her fist on the rock in rage and frustration. She turned back to Neal.

Tears of anger streamed down her face.

“It is too late!”

Neal leaned out over the rock. His ribs exploded in a burst of pain. He saw Simms pacing steadily across the saddle, almost to the base of the ladder. Peng waddled about a hundred yards behind him, followed closely by Wu, who was shuffling along in his distinctive pigeon-toed gait.

He turned back to Li.

“We can run. We can make it. We can warn them.”

She looked steadily in his eyes. “Fate is fate. You cannot change it. You Americans always think you can change it. You must learn to face your fate, learn to face the truth. Face what your stubbornness, and selfishness, and lust have done.”

“Love.”

“No, lust. I begged you to stop, but you wouldn’t stop. Now see what you have done. See what we have done. Accept it.”

Neal slipped the pistol from the small of his back.

“Go. I’ll buy you the time.”

“Neal Carey, listen for one time. I do not love you. That is the truth. I love Robert. That is the truth. I was never going to go with you. That is the truth. I made love with you to deceive you, to buy your silence. But now your silence is worthless.”

She pointed down the hill.

She’s right, he thought. Everything she says is true. Everything I’ve done, I’ve done because of her. Because I wanted her and couldn’t have her.

“Run,” he said. “If you run you can make it.”

“Do not make this sacrifice for me. I do not lo-”

“I know. You don’t love me. But neither do I.”

But I do love you, he thought.

She turned and ran.

Now think, he told himself. For the first time on this whole fucking job, think. Simms can pick you off from here, and that’s no good. You need to shorten the range so that your pistol is as good as his rifle.

He looked uphill to where Li Lan was scrambling up the slope. There was a slight curve in the path, and some rocks off to the uphill side.

If I can make it there, that might do.

He rolled onto the path and started on all fours. His ribs slammed at him, but he didn’t stop. He didn’t look up, either, but he could hear Li Lan running, as bits of rock and shale slid down behind her.

Go, go, go, he thought.

Now he could hear Simms on the path behind him. Also running. Shit. Have to make it to that curve. Have to make it there with a few seconds’ lead.

Neal stood up straight and burst up the hill. He screamed as his ribs exploded and screamed again as he reached the curve and threw himself behind the rocks. He could see a bit of the path below him and all the path in front of him. He saw Li Lan on all fours, and then he watched as she stood straight up, waving her arms and shouting, trying to warn the three men to get off the edge of the summit.

“She is waving!” Xao said. “But where is Carey?”

“He must be resting.”

“Can he see from there?”

“I am sure.”

I hope so, Xao thought. I hope so. Come on, Mr. Carey. Where are you?

Where are you, you little bastard? Simms wondered. The Chinese babe was flattened against the hill like a bug, but Carey had disappeared. Planning another little ambush, are you?

Simms saw the path curve about forty yards above him.

Okay, he thought.

He left the path, working himself down the slope on the seat of his pants. There was a nice rock down there to steady the rifle on, and it would give him a beautiful fire angle at the summit. They would be silhouetted, backlit by the setting sun.

Then he could deal with Carey at leisure. Leisure… what a nice concept. He sure could use a little leisure.

Simms slid down behind the rock.

What the hell is he doing? Neal wondered as he watched Simms’s maneuver. Then he saw Simms drop into a shooter’s crouch, wrap the rifle sling around his wrist, and lay the barrel against the rock. He watched as Simms put his eye to the scope and began to scan the summit,

Li Lan reached the top. She stopped again and waved her arms. They were about a hundred yards away, heading toward her, arms spread out in welcome-the largest possible targets they could be.

Neal saw it too. Pendleton was wrapped in a native black serape, and he looked like some sort of giant bat as he strode toward Li Lan. The Chinese man was older, shorter, but he also walked purposefully toward her as she ran toward them.

He looked down and saw the rifle barrel wave gently as Simms picked a target.

Now this, Simms thought, is what I call a target-rich environment. Now let me see… Well, first things first.

He tightened his grip and centered the cross hairs.

Neal knew he couldn’t hit Simms from that distance with the pistol in a thousand years, but he gave it a try. The pistol bucked in his hand as he pulled the trigger.

The shot didn’t even distract Simms. He chuckled to himself as he followed his target, waiting for the two of them to get closer together so he could make an easy adjustment for the second kill. Or should I try for a double kill with one shot?

No, that would be vulgar.

He practiced his lead once and waited for the ideal shot.

Neal put both feet to the rock and pushed. His ribs strained and screamed as he as he pushed, wedging his back against the slope. Then the shale began to give way underneath. The rock began to slip.

Time to stop fucking around, Simms said to himself. He began to put just the right amount of pressure on the trigger.

The boulder gave way and started to roll. Neal watched it bounce over the path and pick up speed as it tumbled toward Simms. Please, God… please, please, please.

He heard the shot go off a half-second before the boulder hit.

He looked up and saw Pendleton drop.

Like he’d been shot.

Then he heard Li Lan scream.

He sprang to his feet and ran toward her.

Simms was about to grease the babe when he felt a jolt through his hands as a big fucking rock hit the gun barrel and tore the rifle from him.

Son of a bitch, he thought. They just don’t want to make this easy. Well, he’d just have to do her with the knife. He wished she’d quit screaming, though.

Neal heard her wailing as he made it to the summit.

She stood with her back to him, Pendleton in her arms. There was a big hole in his back. The other two men stood as still as statues on the edge of the pavilion.

She was dragging Pendleton to the edge of the cliff, to the Buddha’s Mirror.

“No!” Neal screamed as he ran toward her. “Noooo!!!”

She turned toward Neal as she reached the edge.

The two Chinese men started to run toward her.

Neal was close enough to see her eyes, close enough to see her smile, close enough to reach her with one lunge as she turned, looked into the Buddha’s Mirror, cradled Pendleton in her arms, and jumped.

Neal sprawled on the edge. He peered into the mists below, into the Buddha’s Mirror, but he couldn’t see them. All he could see was the mist, and golden circles of light, and in one golden circle his own face. His own soul.

He closed his eyes and sobbed.

“We thank you for your assistance,” Xao said. He raised his teacup in the form of a toast.

“You are very welcome,” Simms answered.

They were sitting at a pavilion on the summit.

“I must confess,” Xao continued, “that when we started to lure the traitors here, we did not know we would have the assistance of the Central Intelligence Agency. Mr. Peng has been most thorough.”

Peng blushed. He was burning with rage, but could not let it show. Xao’s plot had been foiled, but Xao would come out of it as a hero. Without the bodies, Peng could prove nothing. It would be his word against Xao’s, and he knew he would come out the loser.

“The woman was obviously unstable,” Xao continued.

“Apparently,” agreed Simms.

“Perhaps she loved him.”

“Emotional involvements are dangerous in our type of endeavor.”

“Just so.”

Xao turned to Peng. “You have been very loyal, Xiao Peng, almost to the point to cause concern. For a while it seemed that you thought that I was a traitor, and yet you were willing to conspire with me.”

Xao’s eyes burned into him.

Peng said, “Comrade Secretary, it is not for me to question your instructions, but merely to carry them out.”

Xao’s smile had the warmth of a dagger.

“Even so, accept my gratitude.”

“Humbly, Comrade Secretary.”

Xao turned to Simms. “You will inform your superiors that the problem of Mr. Pendleton is resolved?”

“They will be most grateful.”

Jesus, thought Simms, can we cut the Oriental bullshit and get out of here?

“What about Carey?” Simms asked. “It would be awkward to bring him back to the States.”

“A reckless young man,” Xao answered. “Prone to the sort of rash behavior that leads to accidents. This is a dangerous mountain, particularly on the stretch known as the Elephant’s Saddle. Careless hikers have been known to slip and fall, especially if they were foolish enough to attempt to traverse it at night.”

“But I am afraid I have little choice, Secretary Xao. I wonder if I could borrow a flashlight?”

“Of course. Xiao Wu and my driver will escort you. Mr. Peng will stay here for the night. We have much to discuss.”

Xao smiled pleasantly at Peng. So pleasantly that Peng wasn’t looking forward to the conversation. Xao stood up and offered his hand to Simms.

“Thank you for all your help,” he said.

“Don’t mention it.”

They both laughed at his joke.

Wu sat with Neal at the pavilion near the summit. Neal’s hands were tied behind him. In the three hours since Pendleton’s murder and Li’s suicide he hadn’t uttered a sound, just stared into the distance.

Simms came up, stood in front of Neal, and then kicked him in the ribs. Neal toppled over on his face.

“That’s for the swim in the river,” Simms said.

The driver picked Neal up gently and lifted him to his feet.

“You like to walk, Neal,” said Simms. “We’re going for a walk.”

Simms held a large flashlight in one hand. So did the driver.

The soldier led the way. Simms pushed Neal in behind the soldier, and Wu brought up the rear. They trudged slowly down the Buddha’s Ladder as the driver carefully pointed out the trail with his flashlight. They reached the bottom and started along the Elephant’s Saddle.

“You want to be real careful, Neal, so you don’t slip and fall.”

Neal heard the words with intense relief. They were going to kill him after all.

They’d walked for a couple more minutes when he heard Simms say, “I guess this will do.”

Neal waited for the push. Neal wanted the push.

“Cocksucker.”

Neal turned and saw Wu kick Simms’s feet out from under him. Simms tottered on the edge for a long moment, flailing his arms as he tried to regain his balance. Then he tumbled into the darkness. His scream echoed in the night.

Then the driver lifted Neal into his arms.