White Jade

Chapter Thirty-Six

The chute opened clean and hard. He looked up and saw two chutes blossom above. The plane was a dark arrow turning against the night sky. They were on their own.

A three-quarter moon spilled pure, silver light off the sharp peaks of the Himalayas. The snow-covered mountains gleamed in a shifting tapestry of light and shadow that stretched beyond the horizon. In the distance, Everest and Annapurna grasped at a deep, black sky glowing with stars.

The wind was bad. Control was difficult. He veered off course, checked the GPS, made a correction. His altimeter read seventeen thousand feet. Carter looked for the Humvee and saw the chutes below, far to the right, almost down.

Sixteen thousand feet and the ground was coming up too fast. He worked the lines and headed for a flat area. A strong gust made him sheer left. He overshot the spot he'd picked out and came down hard in an area littered with boulders. The shock ran up his bad leg and right into his spine like electric needles.

He lay for a moment as the chute tried to pull him across the rough ground. The pain was like a knife in his back. He wondered if he was going to be able to get up.

It wasn't a good start. He got to his feet and another bolt of pain stabbed his back and radiated down his leg. He struggled with his chute against the gusting wind.

The ghostly moonlight lit the uneven terrain in shades of gray and black. Pools of deep shadow lay among the rocks. He limped back toward the drop zone. Selena was pulling her chute in about a hundred yards away. When he got there, she took off her mask. She took a deep breath of the thin air.

"That was tricky, that wind…Nick, you're limping."

"It's nothing. You see Ronnie?"

"I think he came down over there."

She pointed at a low rise as Ronnie came trudging over it. They high-fived. Ronnie winced.

"You okay?" Nick asked.

"Just a shoulder bruise. I came down a little hard. It's no big deal."

Now they needed to find the vehicle.

"Anyone see where the Humvee landed?"

"It's that way." Ronnie gestured over his shoulder. "I saw it coming in. Maybe a quarter mile from here. That wind screwed things up."

It took twenty minutes of scrambling over rough stones to find it. Nick's back hurt like hell. The pallet had shattered and the Humvee was half off onto the rocks. It appeared undamaged. They undid the lashings. The engine coughed and started. Ronnie drove a few feet away. They dragged a camouflage net over the pallet and chutes, good enough for the short time they'd be there.

Carter spread a map on the hood of the idling Humvee and got out the GPS. His back throbbed with steady pain. He braced against the side of the hood to take the weight off his leg.

"We're here." He tapped the map. "About eighteen klicks west of the mining town. The road is down there on the other side of that rise. Here's the monastery that's our principle landmark and here are the ruins we're headed for."

"That pilot knew his stuff."

"Makes you feel good, doesn't it? I could do without the moonlight, but it'll be gone soon. We've got around seven hours until dawn. With luck we can reach the ruins before light and get under cover. I'm going to call in."

A coded burst to Harker let her know they were down safe and moving toward the objective.

"Ronnie, you drive."

He pointed to a spot on the map where a valley wound its way into the mountains, before the road reached the Gurugem monastery.

"We'll cut north before we get too close to the building and head straight for the ruins."

They put the packs in back and climbed in. They drove off the hillside and onto the road. It was in good condition, gray and flat in the moonlight. The Humvee vibrated as they drove.

Ronnie said, "Steering isn't real good. Something might have got bent when the sled came down."

"Not much we can do about it."

"Nah, we're still making good time. But I wouldn't want to push it."

Now all they had to do was get to the objective and find a way inside.