journey, claustrophobic in the extreme. The tight, wet walls brushed against his shoulders.
Then he slithered over the first hole in the floor, and he held his breath, waiting for—
—but nothing sprang up from it.
Scimitar followed close behind him and the two of them wriggled along the tunnel until they emerged into standing room once more, finding themselves at the top of a steep, downward-sloping hallway.
On the wall behind them, above the exit to the low tunnel, was a lever just like the one West had pulled, with the Chinese symbol for “knowledge” alongside it.
Above this lever was a picture of an ear; below it, a picture of an eye.
Stretch relayed this to Wizard and West.
“The correct answer is the ear,”Wizard replied.“Since you’re in the Student’s Way, your riddles are Confucian, Laozi’s most talented and trusted student. Confucius said, ‘I hear and I know, I see and I remember.’ Knowledge is then hearing. As for us, once again, thanks to Mao’s concreters, we don’t need your help on this one.”
THE GRAND HALL OF THE WARRIORS
It took them a while, but soon West’s team was through their low tunnel. Now, like Stretch and Scimitar, they stood at the top of a magnificent downward-sloping hallway.
It was absolutely beautiful—with soaring corbelled ceilings at least twenty feet high and lined with gigantic warrior statues, each one seven feet tall and bearing a weapon of some kind.
The hallway seemed to stretch for over a hundred yards, sloping sharply downward but with no stairs to get a foothold, delving deep into the bowels of the Earth. The floor was wet and slippery. Battery-powered lamps left by Mao’s men lined the walls like dim runway lights.
Distantly, West heard something coming from the end of his superlong tunnel.
Voices.
Accompanied by the movement of lights and glowsticks.
It was Colonel Mao and his men, held up at a trap at the bottom end of the tunnel.
They’d caught up.
ASTRO CAMEup beside West and they peered together down into the darkness, in the direction of the voices.
Without a word, Astro held up a grenade, this one with a yellow stripe on it.
West turned, saw it. “Do I even want to know what’s in this one?”
“CS-II. Variety of tear/nerve gas, with covering smoke,” Astro said. “It’s a little stronger than the usual kind of CS gas you use in hostage situations. Designed for situations like this, where you need to get past an enemy force holding an entryway but don’t necessarily want to kill them. Although if you want to do that— ”
“Tears and unconsciousness will be fine, Lieutenant,” West said. “I don’t like killing someone if I don’t have to. Max, oxygen kit.”
At this point, Jack grabbed his trademark fireman’s helmet and attached its full face mask and oxygen kit. The others did the same.
Moments later, three of Astro’s yellow-striped grenades came bouncing down the hallway and entered the midst of Mao’s Chinese force gathered at its base, at the edge of the abrupt vertical drop there.
Flash—bang!
Hissing gas and dense smoke engulfed the dozen or so Chinese troops. They instantly began coughing and gagging, their eyes watering uncontrollably.
Through this hazy gas-filled environment, three figures moved like ghosts.
Wearing full-face oxygen masks and moving quickly, Jack, Astro, and Wizard slipped between the screaming Chinese as they fell to the floor, losing consciousness—although Jack did take the opportunity to give Colonel Mao a sharp blow with the butt of his Desert Eagle on the way past, breaking the Chinese commander’s nose and dropping him.
Then he came to the spot where the hallway’s floor just fell away into nothingness.
“Mother of God…” he breathed.
Mao and his men had set up a diesel generator and some arc lights to illuminate the area, and now, in the haze of the gas, the vast space that opened up before Jack took on a mystical, almost otherworldly appearance.
A vast chasm dropped away in front of him—perhaps thirty yards across and of unknown depth. On its far side was a sheer polished stone wall. This wall was literally covered in round holes, hundreds of them laid out in a grid, each about the size of a human hand.
And in the exact center of the wall was a small square tunnel, heading deeper into the mountain.
Standing on the edge of the chasm, Jack kicked a dropped Chinese gun over the edge.
It sailed down into the darkness.
Silence as it fell.
Long silence.
Then, finally, a distant clunk-splonk.
“Whoa…” West whispered.
